


i wanna do right

by atrytone



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Coming Out, Crying, Feelings, Frottage, M/M, Rimming, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, someone gets rimmed while laid out on a picnic blanket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:00:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2505401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrytone/pseuds/atrytone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet at an ice cream parlor. And then a frat party. And then a coffee shop. Niall isn’t ready to date, but how could anyone ever say no to Harry?</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wanna do right

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Look at Miss Ohio," by Gillian Welch. 
> 
> Thanks for Elise for providing the final push that got me writing this and for grounding it in Madison. Many thanks to Darren for dealing with my abundant comma usage and proclivity for run-on sentences and for helping me turn this into something readable.

They meet at a party, more or less. One of those stately old frat houses that never seems to show wear no matter how many sins are committed inside (because of the legion of cooks, housekeepers, and maintenance crews babysitting the overgrown toddlers who live there). Liam’s frat is hosting and the house is full to bursting with drunken bodies. The music is pulsing so loudly Niall is sure he can see the walls shake. He hears a voice behind him while, next to him, Louis is bellowing triumphantly and demanding fist bumps after securing their names as Beer Pong Champions.

“I know you from somewhere!”

Niall turns around, easy smile still on his face and eyebrows raised. He regrets it instantly because he feels like he’s staring at the sun and it is all mega-watt, million-teeth smile and dimples and curls and green, green eyes like the mint ice cream he loved when he was a kid.

He’s stunned.

What seems like an eternity passes before he can form words, but thank god he has had enough drinks tonight to excuse the amount of time it takes to get his wits about him. Niall looks over his shoulder to buy time and he sees Louis moving on with his eyes on a petite brunette with two bright, red cups in hand, one already outstretched to Louis. Then it’s eyes forward, trying to focus long enough to take in more than a series of snapshots— flushed lips, strong jaw, those dimples, green, green eyes, and a loose little braid near his temple.

“Now, I think I’d remember meeting you.” It sounds easy on the tongue, casual even, and Niall’s thankful for his small instincts that let him not make an ass out of himself here.

“No, no, I definitely know you from somewhere,” the stranger insists.

The guy standing in front of him is tapping one long finger against his lips thoughtfully and taking slow, thoughtful steps around Niall, only weaving slightly. Niall turns his head as much as he can to follow his path. So what if he takes advantage of the opportunity to get a proper eyeful: eyes tracing the outline of broad shoulders, a trim chest, nipped-in waist covered in a simple grey v-neck that exposes thick swaths of black tattoos below his collarbones, worn green plaid tied around his hips, long, long legs wearing black jeans that look painted on they’re so tight.

“Any clues yet?” Niall ventures.

The music thumping through the house feels too loud, requires too much effort to tune out, and that’s all the feeble excuse his brain needs to focus on the soft-looking mouth in front of him, even though he’s never been much for lip-reading.

“What’s your favorite milkshake?” Legs-for-Days asks, thrusting his hand out for a belated greeting, “I’m Harry.”

“Niall.”

Harry’s hand is warm and strong and Niall doesn’t want to let go. He lets their hands linger for a beat longer than necessary, his thumb rubbing Harry’s hand lightly before he drops his hold.

“And?” Harry asks.

“And what?”

“What’s your favorite milkshake?”

The thought idly occurs to him that this must be the weirdest pick-up line Niall has ever been on the receiving end of. He brushes a hand over the short hair at the nape of his neck and shrugs faintly.

“I don’t know… chocolate marshmallow? You c-“

“I knew it! I made you a milkshake this summer, Mr. Niall. Gave you extra cherries on top and everything and you didn’t so much as bother to come visit me again.”

Niall’s too drunk to be doing this much thinking, but he tries to fit the pieces together anyway because Legs-for-Days, Harry, seems offended. When was the last time he’d even had a milkshake? There had been that place when he toured campus, when he was thinking about transferring. Suddenly he remembers a voice calling him cute, and trying to identify the speaker, but only being able to make out the vague shapes of a jawline, dimples, and hair pulled back into a bun from the shadows behind the screen of the ice cream shop. He remembers the flush spreading up his neck and being uncomfortably aware of his parents standing a few feet away.

“You work at that ice cream shop on campus, right?”

“We’re not exactly on campus and it’s called The Dairy Bar, but yes.”

Niall can’t stop thinking about how his hand still feels warm where Harry’s hand had touched it and how much he wants to put a hand on one of his curved hips and pull this stranger close. How much he wants to whisper an offer to head back to his apartment into the long stretch of Harry’s throat.

He shakes his head and then shoves his blond bangs out of his face. _Move. Keep moving._ It’s the only thing that’ll keep him from embarrassing himself, he thinks.

“Do you want a drink? I need a refill. It’s the least I can do, since you gave me extra cherries.”

That blinding smile is back and Harry nods, bowing out of the way so Niall can lead the way to the kitchen. Niall is drunker than he wants to be and he can’t believe that he let Louis goad him into doing an entire elimination-style beer pong championship, why does he do that? But Harry’s following him and Niall wants to keep his attention for as long as he can. When they reach the kitchen Niall grabs two beers out of the fridge and opens both before holding one out.

“Thanks,” Harry says, taking a swig and then licking at the rim of the bottle when a droplet starts racing toward his hand.

Niall doesn’t know if it is the beer or the blood rushing definitively _away_ from his brain that leaves him feeling unsteady, but he thuds against the counter either way, needing its support.

Suddenly Harry’s crowding into his personal space, fingertip tracing shapes on Niall’s chest.

“Bucky,” he muses. The word sounds thick in his throat and his lips quirk upward.

Niall reels for a second before he puts it together, duh, the Badgers shirt, and then Harry leans in to press a kiss to Bucky’s forehead and that means Niall can feel the warm pulse of his breath through the worn fabric, and want curls so quickly in the pit of his stomach that he almost moans.

 _It’s ridiculous how pretty he is_ , he thinks as Harry looks up at him from beneath his lashes, breath still warm and damp against Niall’s chest through his shirt. When Harry pushes his hip away from the counter and unfolds to his full height, Niall has to tilt his chin up to maintain eye contact. Fingers brush Niall’s jaw and then it’s a slow, sloppy kiss, skipping right past tentative and going straight for practically pornographic. Niall can taste the musk of cheap beer combined with the fresh bite of mint toothpaste.

The counter is digging into the small of his back as Harry fits their bodies together, one hand fisted into the cotton of Niall’s shirt at his side. He looked soft—so soft—before, all slim limbs and curving waist, but there’s nothing soft about the body Niall is getting pinned against. Not now that he’s up close and personal with it.

As soon as he has the thought that he could kiss Harry forever, Niall swiftly becomes aware that things are going downhill fast and has to plant both of his hands on Harry’s chest and push away gently.

“Oh shit, no—“

“I’m sorry, I thought— I thought we were on the same page there,” Harry says immediately, hands held up in apology as he backs away from Niall.

Niall wants to shake him and tell him how wrong he is, but he has more pressing concerns like getting to a bathroom so he can puke in relative privacy.

Afterwards, once Louis finds him and checks on him and insists on doing a shot “to Niall’s good health!”, Harry is nowhere to be found. Niall pretends not to notice the kick of regret deep in his gut.

* * *

“He ran away from me,” Harry says pathetically to his yoga mat and hopes Zayn is listening.

It’s a shit kapotasana, really; his chest is too tense so his arms aren’t pressing into the floor the way they should, but Zayn doesn’t know any different. Harry can hear the quick movement of pencil on paper so he must not have any complaints.

“Switch,” is the only response he gets, followed by, “Wait, who ran away from you?”

He arches his neck up from where he’s transitioned to child’s pose to look at Zayn with what he sincerely hopes is an intimidating look. Considering he’s practically naked in little yellow shorts and pig tails, he has the sneaking suspicion he doesn’t get quite the effect he’s going for.

“The gorgeous blond, the one I told you about this summer! Found out his name is Niall? Ringing any bells?” Zayn’s lucky he’s pretty because Harry clearly doesn’t keep him around for his listening skills. “Do you listen to anything I say to you? You’re supposed to be my best friend!”

“Next pose. And I do listen to you, it’s just, it’s not like this is the first gorgeous blond you’ve told me about, mate.”

He has a point, but Harry had told him that _this_ blond was different, that he could tell when he saw him that day over the summer he was going to be an important factor in Harry’s life.

“C’mon, do another? Will you do an inversion for me?”

“Why should I? I’ve been telling you all about my poor broken heart, about how I kissed a guy and he was so appalled he _ran away from me_ and you don’t even care.”

“He ran away after you kissed him?”

Harry’s so flustered that he falls right out of the crane he’d been holding, yanks a ponytail out of his hair, and aims it at that ridiculously perfect jaw. He feels a low churn of pleasure when it smacks right into the shadow of stubble there.

“Hey!”

“You are an ass! That is exactly what I was trying to tell you before!”

“Aww, c’mon Haz, I’m sorry. I need five more sketches for this class. You want me to fail, lose my student visa?”

“Might as well, a wall would be a better friend than you at this point,” Harry grumbles and throws himself back down on the mat, just lying with his arms across his chest and frowning at the ceiling. Now he’s only got one pigtail and some sweaty loose curls. He’s not even going to try to look intimidating, but that doesn’t mean he has to be cooperative.

“Please? You can tell me all about the gorgeous blond when I’m finished with my sketches.”

“You promise?” Harry is a sucker for a nice, polite “please.”

“Promise.”

“What do you think his favorite flower is?”

“Hazza, hold still!”

 

* * *

 

“Earth to Neil!” Louis has his lips twisted in that stupid, stupid smirk when Niall looks at him, shaking the two boxes he has in his hands. “Mind bringing your lovesick puppy act down a notch or two and telling me whether you want Froot Loops or Cocoa Puffs?”

“I’m not lovesick,” he protests weakly, grabbing the Froot Loops and throwing them into the shopping cart before continuing down the aisle.

“Coulda fooled me. Ever since Liam’s frat had that party, you’ve been all bent out of shape. Do I need to kick someone’s ass?”

Louis’s throwing in Pop-Tarts and gummy fruit snacks and chocolate chip cookies as he talks, blithely ignoring any concept of nutritional value. Niall makes a mental note to swing back by produce and get spinach for smoothies in an effort to counteract all the sugar they’re currently preparing to stock the apartment with.

He hasn’t been exactly lovesick; how could he be? But every time he closes his eyes there’s some snapshot image of Harry: the phantom feel of his hand in Niall’s, the ghost of spearmint in his mouth from Harry’s toothpaste. Louis has a point— he has been… distracted.

“No, you don’t need to do anything. Just thinking about school, that’s all.”

Louis clucks his tongue and gives him an appraising look, clearly not convinced. “You act like I haven’t known you my whole life. Who was it?”

He feels something break, thinks maybe if he gets it out of his system he can stop thinking about it. About him.

“I don’t know his whole name.” Louis’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline and Niall scoffs. “Not like that. We just talked, mostly. We were drunk.”

“What do you know?”

“His name’s Harry, he works off campus in the summers. I don’t even know if he goes here. I’ll probably never see him again.” The thought makes him sadder than he wants to admit.

“Oh, Neil. Neil, Neil, Neil. You poor idiot. Let’s go out this weekend, find some lad to take your mind off him, yeah?”

Niall rolls his eyes, but then Louis hipchecks him, grinning widely. “I said, let’s go out this weekend and find some lad to take your mind off him, yeah?”

Louis is an ass; Niall wouldn’t trade him for anything. “Yeah, okay. Let’s.”

Niall lets him pick which brand of frozen pizza they’re going to fill their freezer with this time.

 

* * *

 

They do go out and Niall does sidle up to some cute guy he’s seen around Liam’s. The guy is a bro, really, but he is built and he’s got this mess of brown curls Niall can’t stop touching and so, when the guy mouths at his earlobe and suggests they go back to the house, he just swallows and nods, lacing their fingers and following him out into the bracing cool of the September night—the first night Niall can remember this year that he has shivered with his first steps outside, where you can see the ghost of your breath. The street lamps are all on and it is easy to find their way from one frat house to the next, what with them being all in a row and so conveniently labeled with those big damn letters displayed so prominently, but they still stumble and bump into one another and Niall still lets the guy—Isaac? Zach? Zeke?— press him up against the cold metal of a lamp post and kiss a bloom of purple onto his neck.

Then they are stumbling up a curved staircase in a house way too nice for the debauchery it houses, laughing into one another’s mouths when they knock into the wrong door, and finally, finally, through the right door and hands are shoving at pants and Niall’s bare ass hits the edge of a bed. Isaac/Zach/Zeke is giving him sloppy, drunk head that gets points for enthusiasm, but not much else. When he comes, hands fisted in brown curls, he gasps “Harry” and that’s how he ends up crashing on the floor of Liam’s room, shielding his eyes from the bright light of Liam texting God-knows-who at a stupid time of the night.

“I fucked up,” Niall groans, rolling onto his side. If not thinking about Harry was the goal, he more than fucked up. He completely fucking failed.

Liam doesn’t even have the decency to try and hide his laugh, just throws a spare pillow down to Niall and tells him to shut up and sleep.

* * *

_Not straight. He’s not straight._ Well, Harry doesn’t actually know what he is—he keeps forgetting that assuming shit like that makes him an ass and he needs to be better at that. What he does know is he saw that gorgeous blond kissing some tall, curly-haired guy and then leave with that same guy.

Which means maybe he hasn’t been totally wrong in thinking about kissing Niall again.

 _Tell me everything you know about Niall_ , he texts Liam. He almost adds “I think I might love him,” but thinks it might be the joint that he shared with Zayn talking, so he hits send before he can add anything he’ll regret. Zayn is always telling him he comes on a little strong, that people don’t always feel things like Harry does. Harry would like to think that indicates an issue on behalf of other people, not him, but he’s trying to be more aware of how he makes other people feel this year.

 _too innocent 4 u,_ comes the quick response from Liam.

_I promise to be on my best behavior._

_thats what worries me_

To that, Harry just responds with a quickly snapped picture of himself pouting.

_what do u want to know?_

_Everything. Anything. What he thinks of Tallulah as a name if its a girl._ Well, he almost made it without saying something embarrassing.

* * *

 

After a couple weeks of thinking about him and not seeing him, Niall has just about accepted that he really needs to move on. So obviously that is when he bumps into Harry at the coffee shop near campus. Or, Harry bumps into him, literally, and Niall says a quick prayer of thanks that he was only carrying iced coffee and not something more painful.

“Well, quite frankly, you deserved that.”

Niall looks up from the growing stain on his shirt, eyebrows practically up to his hairline. Harry looks even better than he remembers, long and lean with those broad shoulders and long legs, wide mouth stretched in a smile and framed with those damn dimples Niall has been dreaming about. His hair is pulled back into a bun today, but there are curls falling out of the bottom and clinging to the skin at Harry’s neck. Niall wants to taste the skin there. Harry’s already walking away from him before he gathers his wits enough for a response.

“What? How could I possibly have deserved that?”

Harry grabs napkins and comes back over to dab at the front of Niall’s shirt, teeth biting into his lower lip to keep from smiling.

“I made you a milkshake with extra cherries, never hear from you. We meet again, we kiss, and then you run away!” He makes a low noise of disapproval and continues his feeble attempt at drying Niall’s shirt. “You’ve treated me appallingly.”

“Maybe I tried to find you after the party and couldn’t.”

Harry hums faintly and smiles, which irritates Niall. Not the smiling. The lack of a response.

“Do you know how many Harry’s there are at this school? How was I supposed to find you to apologize? You left the party before I could get to you again.”

“I think you felt just fine about it. You seemed like you had your hands full last time I saw you. Quite literally full— he had a great ass. What was his name?”

The flush is immediate and Niall wants to disappear into the floor. Not only because Harry saw him at that party hooking up with Liam’s frat brother, but because, well, he doesn’t remember his name. It takes Niall a few seconds to realize that the situation is spiraling out of control and if he wants the chance to get Harry out of his system, he needs to get a grip and fast. He’s supposed to be smoother than this, but it feels like every ounce of composure he has flies out of the window at the first glance of Harry.

“Let me make it up to you. Can I buy you a replacement coffee since I’m wearing the one you bought?”

There’s a beat where Niall really thinks Harry might turn him down, but then he nods. “I usually like an iced coffee with vanilla and soy milk, please. I’ll go grab us a table.”

Class starts in 15 minutes and Niall really does not need to miss his solid state electronics course when he’s already struggling to keep up, but he’s not letting Harry slip through his grasp again. He orders two of the drink that Harry requested and then goes to find him in a corner of the busy shop. When he sits down and stretches his legs out next to Harry’s, Harry doesn’t have any qualms about looking at the whole sprawl of Niall’s body, which makes him feel proud and warm and appreciative. The sip of coffee that he takes next, on the other hand, has him cringing in disgust.

“This drink tastes like shit.”

“Heyyyy,” Harry whines, frowning back at Niall.

He takes a long pull of his coffee and makes a show of rubbing his belly in appreciation. The motion raises the hem of his obnoxiously patterned shirt high enough that Niall can see swirls of black ink that roll across his hips and then disappear below the band of Harry’s boxers and Niall feels his mouth go dry.

“Sweet like me. I like it.”

It’s awkward, like he isn’t sure how to flirt with someone once he’s kissed them and then had to run away to puke. So instead he just asks, “What’s your last name? That way if we get separated by a catastrophe or freak accident, I can find you this time.”

In response, Harry grins and holds out a hand like they’re meeting for the first time all over again. “Harry Styles at your service.”

“Horan. My last name is Horan, I mean.”

Harry’s grip is firm and he rubs his finger across Niall’s knuckles twice before Niall snatches his hand back, drying his sweaty palms on his jean-clad thighs.

“Well damn, don’t you just have that good, strong Irish Catholic written all over you and with a name to match.” Harry is smiling— he is clearly teasing— but Niall can’t just sit there while his name is being insulted.

“Oh, fuck off. Harry Styles? What kind of name is that?”

Despite being such a shitty comeback, it gets a throaty laugh in response and Niall thinks idly that he would do almost anything to make Harry laugh again.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Niall leans in, curious as to what Harry could be wanting to confide in him. Maybe it is an embarrassing family name? Maybe his name isn’t even Harry and the reality is more embarrassing?

“I want to kiss you, Niall Horan.” Which, _wow_.

“You kissed me once already, remember?”

“Well I’d like to kiss you without you running away afterward and me having to worry I’ve just attacked some poor straight boy with my mouth.”

Niall is blushing so hard he feels like his face is on fire, but he refuses to drop Harry’s gaze— Harry, who is leaning forward, pupils blown, lips parted, fingers on the table like they’re reaching for Niall, is a textbook example of “down to fuck,” really. Niall can’t imagine he gets turned down for many things in his life, not with that kind of focused want.

“Are you propositioning me at a coffee shop? I’m scandalized.”

It doesn’t faze Harry, apparently, because he just ignores Niall and continues, “Liam told me you play the guitar, why don’t you show me?”

“Uh, my guitar is at my apartm—” Niall stops himself and grins when he realizes that that’s the whole point. He is off his game with Harry; usually he is the smooth endearing one. Everyone likes Niall. It’s never been hard to do the flirting thing. He just isn’t used to someone being so blatant about it, isn’t used to someone wanting him so aggressively.

“Come on, Niall. Play a song for me.”

“Don’t you have class or something? It’s the middle of the day!”

“I have an evening class, which is why I’d like to go back to your place so you can play me a song and I can blow you as soon as possible.”

That shuts Niall right up. This isn’t something he does. He’s been hooking up, yeah, but to talk about it so clearly, to just ditch his responsibilities, to go home and fuck about mid-day— that’s not Niall. But somehow he’s nodding and Harry’s entire face lights up— wide, slow smile, dimples, those bright eyes, the whole 9 yards, and Niall realizes somewhat belatedly that he’s so far gone he’d take Harry into the bathroom and blow him if Harry just asked with that smile on his face.

Which is, of course, how he ends up sitting in one corner of his ratty couch with a guitar in his lap and sex-on-a-stick Harry Styles a few feet away, leaning into the opposite corner and just quietly singing along as Niall plays a slowed down version of “Toxic” per Harry’s request. He keeps messing up: distracted by the way Harry is watching him, by the quick wet flash of pink tongue against his lips, by the clear half-hard bulge in his ridiculously skinny jeans.

The thought occurs to him that he might be in over his head. Harry looks like he wants to eat him alive and, while Niall’s no blushing virgin, he gets the distinct feeling that Harry could teach him a thing or two about the finer points of sex and the mere possibility of Harry finding him disappointing in bed is so upsetting that, before Harry can protest, Niall goes straight into another song, then another, and then another. He can’t stop watching the lazy movements of Harry’s mouth as he sings, looking at the strong cut of his jaw and thinking about how much he wants to bite the skin there. About how much he wants to see the lips red and swollen from kissing.

He doesn’t even realize he has stopped playing until his guitar is being gently pried from his hands by Harry, who sets the guitar on the coffee table and then crawls practically into Niall’s lap.

“You were starting to hurt my feelings. A boy might think you don’t want to kiss him.”

There are these big doe eyes looking up at Niall and too-pink lips (how are they that pink?) pushed out in a pout and Niall can’t remember what his earlier objections were, because he wants to kiss Harry and Harry clearly wants to kiss him. Right now he’s having trouble seeing any issue with that.

So this time it is Niall that leans in and matches his lips to Harry’s; Niall with his hand on the smooth line of Harry’s jaw; Niall surging forward so he has Harry pinned to the couch beneath him, his own narrow hips slotted in between Harry’s spread legs. When Harry sighs into Niall’s mouth, Niall thinks it might be the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, but then he rolls his hips forward tentatively, just because he can, and Harry makes a low keening noise in his throat and _that’s_ the sound Niall wanted. That’s the sound that sends the last shred of self-control spiraling out of reach. Niall should’ve known he didn’t stand a chance of getting this out of his system, of getting Harry out of his system.

“Yeah,” Harry breaths and Niall panics for a second thinking he’s been speaking out loud, but then he sees the focused look on Harry’s face: his lower lip captured beneath his teeth and eyelashes long on his cheek as he looks down to where their hips are rubbing. He’s got one hand flat on Niall’s back, coaxing him forward and keeping Niall’s hips rolling slowly against his. Niall really doesn’t want to come in his pants (hadn’t even planned to do more than kiss Harry out here on the couch), but he also has never wanted anything as much as he wants to take Harry apart without even having to remove an article of clothing.

“I wanted to take more time,” Harry’s rasping into Niall’s ear, all slow and sweet like he’s having trouble coming up with the words.

The thing is, even with their jeans on, Niall can feel the hard press of Harry’s dick against his confirming his words, punctuating how much Harry wants. And even with the clothes constricting them, Niall thinks this might be the hottest fuck he’s ever had, because Harry all spread out beneath him is unlike anything he has ever seen and just the thought of getting to taste his skin has Niall rocking his hips harder down against Harry, mouthing at the ivory skin of Harry’s throat, and sinking his teeth experimentally into the cord of muscle at his shoulder.

Harry sees entire constellations bloom against his eyelids and it’s all he can do to get his hands in Niall’s hair to angle his mouth back up so Harry can lick into it, can kiss until his lips feel bruised with the pressure and then keep going. He could kiss Niall for years and it still wouldn’t be enough. He feels drunk on it.

Harry’s mouth is everywhere: teeth scraping along Niall’s jaw, tongue pushing against his, lips brushing against Niall’s throat. It’s like there are ten of him and they’re all on Niall and Niall doesn’t want to embarrass himself, but this really isn’t going to last for very long. If there’s any consolation to be had, it’s that Harry is squirming back against him wantonly, curls matted to his forehead, and Niall is pretty confident he’s even closer than Niall is.

It’s the soft little noises that Niall will remember later when Harry’s gone and Niall’s trying and failing to pretend like he doesn’t already acutely feel Harry’s absence. It’s these quiet, hushed breaths and gasps and whines; when Niall presses his forehead to Harry’s he can feel those little puffs of air against his swollen lips and it is so much, too much, but he wants to see Harry fly to pieces beneath him before he lets go himself.

With one hand cupped around Harry’s thigh, Niall adjusts their position so that he can grind his hips into Harry’s more forcefully and feels a swift rush of power when Harry’s eyes practically roll back in his head.

“Fuck,” Harry gasps, legs tightening around Niall’s hips.

He’s got those long fingers curled around Niall’s biceps, squeezing, nails digging in just to the point of pain and Niall really fucking needs Harry to come because he isn’t going to last much longer.

“Come on, Haz. Let me see.”

Maybe he sounds a little desperate, but he’s beyond caring and it all feels worth it because when Harry comes trembling and gasping Niall’s name, he feels so fucking lucky to get to see it that he’d sacrifice just about anything to get to do it again. And a little pride is nothing in the grand scheme of things, not if it means a sated, happy Harry whispering encouragement into his ear while Niall ruts against him, not if it means soft strokes against his back until he comes on a sob and collapses immediately against Harry. What’s a little pride sacrificed in the face of all that?

It’s all quiet and their chests are heaving against one another for a few minutes until Harry starts giggling beneath him.

“Oops,” is all he says, which isn’t anywhere near enough to excuse him for startling Niall out of dozing.

“What?”

Niall is sleepy and he really just wants to take a nap on the couch with Harry. He doesn’t even care that they both just came in their pants like horny teenagers. They can deal with it later. Now he wants Harry tucked back against him, wants his face buried against Harry’s neck, wants to doze surrounded by Harry, so he goes about manhandling Harry until that’s exactly how they’re laying on the couch.

“I forgot all about my promise to blow you.”

Niall opens his mouth to respond, but Harry’s turning to look over his shoulder at Niall and just smiling like the cat that got the canary and he can’t even form words for a response because the only word left in his brain is Harry’s name.

“Guess I’ll just have to come back later. I always keep my promises.”

Niall really, really should’ve known better.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe people are still teaching this!” Niall looks down just in time to see Harry toss his book several feet away, lips twisted in a severe frown. “Millions of poets and I have to read this?”

Anger on Harry is almost unbearably cute and it makes Niall smile even as he hums in disapproval, which is what he knows Harry wants out of him. Luckily, Harry continues onward without looking up, ranting as he shields his eyes from the sun with one hand, not bothering to sit up from where his head is resting in Niall’s lap.

When Harry had insisted that they were spending too much of their non-school time cooped up in a room, Niall fought it; he has ended up distinctly anti-anything that makes Harry put clothes on. But the truth is, he really had needed to study and it’s becoming pretty clear that time that is both non-school and non-Harry is a commodity rather quickly. That is how he ends up in Tenney Park with his back against a tree trunk doing his best to keep his hands to himself so they can both get some schoolwork done.

And really, it has been worth it. Harry, of course, found the perfect spot beneath a tree whose leaves had just begun to turn shades of rust and gold. The sky is blue and clear above them and it’s probably one of the last bare-arm days they’ll get. So it could be worse.

“I’ll never teach Bukowski, mark my words. I’ll teach the poets no one talks about, the ones that matter.” A laugh escapes before Niall can stop it, and instantly Harry’s narrowed eyes are focused on his face, eyebrows drawn together. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing’s funny, Haz. You’re just cute when you get like this.”

Harry blinks once, twice. “When I get like what?”

“Mad. You’re like an angry little kitten.”

He’s already stuck his foot in his mouth, so Niall goes for broke and knocks his stolen snapback off of Harry’s head and rubs his hand through the freed curls.

Harry swats at Niall’s hand, scowl deepening. “Because I care about things?”

“Because you’re such a little hipster and you don’t even realize it.”

That earns him an indignant squawk and a sharp pinch to his side, but Niall retaliates by digging his fingers into Harry’s side and tickling. Before he even realizes what has happened, they’re rolling around in the grass in some bastardized hybrid of tickling and wrestling. So, yeah, it feels a little childish but the day is perfect, Harry keeps laughing that deep-bellied laugh and Niall wants to keep him close by and laughing for the rest of his life.

Which, when he thinks about it, is a bit of a weird thought to be having about someone he’s just supposed to be hooking up with. It’s just that once you get past that laser-focused want and sex god appeal, Harry’s actually sweet. And funny. And almost alarmingly free-spirited. It makes Niall feel good to have him close, even when they’re not fucking. Which is kind of a mind-blowing realization to have in the middle of play-fighting in broad daylight.

To hear Niall tell it, Harry takes advantage of his distraction and rolls them over so that he has Niall pinned on his back, long fingers wrapped around Niall’s wrists holding them into the grass.

“If I’m a hipster, you like a hipster, and that says more about you than me.”

He always sounds so confident and Niall envies, for the briefest second, his certainty about everything. Envies how easy this seems for him. Maybe it’s where he grew up, how he grew up. If they were in Niall’s hometown, they’d never be this affectionate in public. They couldn’t be.

“You’re not paying attention to me,” Harry grumbles before ducking down to kiss Niall so thoroughly Niall thinks he sees stars, his hands still keeping Niall’s pinned. It tastes like Froot Loops and sticky-sweet coffee and if Harry stops kissing him, he might die.

But too soon, Harry is turning his head just enough to the side to speak into Niall’s jawline.

“We’re supposed to be studying and if we don’t stop, we’re going to get charged with indecent exposure and scar some poor innocent squirrels for life.”

Niall really hates it when Harry makes so much sense.

  **  
**

* * *

When Niall said he had a surprise, this wasn’t what Harry had been expecting.

“Were you feeling homesick, Country Mouse?”

It’s fields on either side of them, has been for well over 15 minutes, and Harry thinks the roads might be getting narrower with every passing mile.

“I’m not taking you home. You’ll love it, I promise.”

The little hum that Harry makes doesn’t sound too confident, but he settles back into his seat and reaches a hand to clasp one of Niall’s anyway. And a few minutes later, when the signs start popping up, he has to feel guilty for ever doubting Niall for even a moment.

“A _corn maze_? You’re taking me to a corn maze? Are there pumpkins? Are we carving pumpkins?” So maybe he sounds a little like an over-excited kid. Who cares.

“Yes, Haz, there are pumpkins, and if you play really nice and promise to eat all of your vegetables, I’ll let you pick one out that we can carve later.”

**************

“It’s perfect!”

Harry barely even realizes he’s speaking when he sees the ideal pumpkin— so big he’ll barely be able to carry it, a little misshapen to give it character, bright burnt orange in color. He vaguely processes Niall jogging to catch up with him when he crouches down and just presses a palm to the sun-warmed skin. Oh yeah, this is definitely his pumpkin.

“Absolutely not.” _Wait, what?_

“Niall. You told me to pick out a pumpkin, this is it. This is the only pumpkin for me.”

“That pumpkin is gigantic, Haz. It won’t be able to balance on the balcony!”

Around them, Harry can hear similar arguments between children and their parents, sees people lugging their round, modest pumpkins away. But he’s not a child and he wants this pumpkin and he can fight dirty with Niall. So he pouts a little and looks up from beneath his eyelashes, barely inclines his chin. He can feel the breeze in his hair and hopes it works to his advantage rather than making it look like a rat’s nest. It could go either way, these days.

“Don’t you want me to be happy?”

And, well, Niall doubled over in laughter isn’t exactly the reaction he’d been going for.

“Is that your version of subtle?” There are tears in his eyes from laughing and it wasn’t that poor of a try, Harry wants to insist.

“C’mon, we’ll figure it out. Please, Ni?”

Niall looks beyond him to the pumpkin again and, when he rolls his eyes and grins, Harry knows he has won. He spends the entire time they go to pay talking to his pumpkin, musing out loud about what kind of jack-o-lantern it wants to be, promising that it’ll look much nicer than Niall’s, and if he’s playing it up a little because he likes that fond look that Niall gets, no one has to know.

When they’re walking to the car to put the pumpkins down before going to the corn maze, Harry hears a little girl on the other side of the parking row whisper loudly.

“Momma, look!”

And it isn’t until he sees Niall go tense that the thought occurs to him that she might be talking about _them_.

“Honey, shh.”

“But momma!” It isn’t even a whisper anymore.

“Stop pointing, it isn’t polite.”

Harry feels his ears go red and usually he’d be able to let this roll off his back, but Niall is clearly not going to be able to do that and _that_ feels like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

“That pumpkin is so big! How come I couldn’t get a pumpkin like that?”

The _pumpkin_.

Harry’s pumpkin.

Harry wants to pick her up and kiss her little forehead. Next to him, Niall is trying to stifle a chuckle and, okay, this is fine. They’ve got their day back, it is going to be fine. He turns his head some to see the little girl better and sees the pumpkin she is carrying. It is much, much smaller, but then again she doesn’t seem to be more than 5 or 6, so it’d have to be for her to carry it.

The decision isn’t even fully made when he pauses in his steps and turns. “Excuse me, miss. May I just say that that is the most marvelous pumpkin I have ever seen?”

The duo stops and the mom doesn’t seem like she is considering yelling about stranger danger, so Harry walks across the lane to them.

“What do you say, Brooklyn?” she prompts, which makes the little girl smile and reveal two missing front teeth.

“Thank you, sir.”

So far, so good. “Now, I understand if you say no, but do you think you could trade me?” He glances to the mom’s face and she’s smiling, which he takes as a good sign. “My pumpkin isn’t as good as yours, but it is pretty good! And I’ve been looking for one just like yours for years.”

Niall has followed him and is just watching the whole scene unfold; he can feel the weight of Niall’s gaze on his back.

“Momma, can I?”

“Do you think you can carry that pumpkin?”

“I can carry it to the car for you,” Harry rushes to say.

The girl’s mom nods and the little girl turns back to Harry and grins, which makes Harry smile, and he doesn’t even have to see Niall to know that he is shaking his head.

Niall barely waits for Brooklyn and her mom to get out of view, everyone’s pumpkins safely in their respective cars, before he tugs at the wrist of the hand Harry _isn_ _’_ _t_ waving goodbye with and uses it to pull Harry close enough to give him a quick kiss.

“You’re pretty impressive, you know?” Niall mumbles again his mouth.

Harry kisses him back and hums noncommittally like his whole world isn’t totally lit up and glowing from the compliment. Finally, after a moment, he pulls away and says “yeah, I know,” with a wide grin that makes Niall laugh.

They definitely have their good day back.

 

**************  

The thought occurs to Harry rather belatedly that maybe running through a corn maze isn’t the best idea, because it is less than a minute of being chased by Niall and trying to lose one another in the twists and turns of the maze before Harry’s boot catches on some hole in the ground and sends him pitching forward into the dirt. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to startle the breath out of his lungs for a second and for him to whine “owwwwww” when he gets his breath back.

“Harry, are you okay?”

There is an edge of panic that shouldn’t warm Harry’s heart, but it does because he knows he cares about Niall and he thinks he knows Niall cares about him by this point, but it still feels good to get anything close to confirmation (it isn’t like Niall is exactly forthcoming with the emotional stuff). He imagines part of the panic is that Niall is too far to do anything if he isn’t okay, since Harry’d just managed to evade him again; he’s gotten turned around enough that Niall’s voice is muffled by distance.

“Fine. We’re trapped in here forever, aren’t we?”

Niall just laughs in response and Harry thinks he can hear his Converse stomping along through the dirty as he tries to find where Harry is hiding.

“Harry?” Niall’s voice is closer this time.

He could get up and go to him or he could keep laying here in the dirt surrounded by sweet smelling corn and wait to be found. The sun feels so good on his face and, if there were just a couple fewer people yelling, he could probably nap, if he is being perfectly honest.

“Over here!”

It is Niall’s shoe nudging his shoulder that makes him open his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“It’s so easy with you,” Harry breathes, which isn’t an answer and he’s sure the expression on his face is awe, but how could he not be awed when Niall is standing there all backlit by sun with that smile on his face, breathing heavily?

“What’s easy?”

He makes a show of going boneless when Niall tries to help him up, only plays along and stands when he sees those blue eyes roll and hears a little chuckle escape from Niall’s throat. He is in the middle of brushing the dirt from his jeans when he realizes he hasn’t answered Niall. _What_ _’_ _s easy?_ he thinks.

“Everything.”

* * *

What wakes Niall up is Louis cussing at the TV, calling someone a “filthy pack of whiny bitches.” The clock says it’s a quarter ’til noon, which means he’s not yelling at an actual game and _that_ means Louis is camping out in front of the TV all day with Madden, FIFA, and probably at least three different kinds of chips. Niall wants to do nothing as much as he wants to crash that party. With no Harry and no impending exams, it sounds like the perfect way to spend a lazy Sunday, so he pulls on a pair of athletic shorts and grabs the nearest hoodie (Badgers, which he feels a little guilty about when he knows there’s at least three Green Bay shirts in here and it is a Sunday after all) and lopes out into the living room, throwing himself down as hard as he can on the couch next to where Louis is sprawled. It bounces Louis and sends a remote crashing to the floor, which feels strangely satisfying.

“Where’s Harry?” is the first thing Louis says to him, glancing over to where Niall is shoving an entire handful of Doritos into his mouth.

Niall shrugs, trying to ignore that Louis assumes he’d be with Harry, doing his best to aim for nonchalance.

“Hanging with Zayn today. Worked yesterday and was so tired afterward that he just went home and went to bed.”

“I was beginning to think this was home for him,” Louis teases as he hands Niall the spare controller and restarts the game— it’s Madden now, which means FIFA is for later, once Louis is tired of Niall kicking his ass— “what with all the weird shit he leaves around. Vanilla mint toothpaste? Who puts vanilla in their toothpaste?”

“How do you know that isn’t my toothpaste?”

“Because I’ve known you for 21 years and lived with you for a couple months now and never known you to buy your own toothpaste. You use mine or you let your mom buy it. No way has Maura bought anything other than classic mint Colgate in her life.”

The comment makes him blush because obviously he’s right, but he’s been trying to ignore how quickly Harry assimilated into his life.

“Toothpaste doesn’t mean he’s moving in. It’s just smart, with how many nights he spends here.”

“Toothpaste, those pretentious English major books everywhere, soy milk in the fridge. He’s practically moved into your room, man.”

Niall most definitely doesn’t want to talk about how embedded Harry is in his life already, so he throws a pillow at Louis’s face to distract him and focuses on kicking his ass at Madden. Louis is decent enough though, sometimes, when he wants to be, and smart, so for at least 10 minutes he avoids the topic of Harry and then the rest of their day is spent talking shit about basically every other element of one another’s lives _except_ their current relationships.

Well, until Louis looks over at Niall stuffing his face full of the pizza they got delivered and heaves a loud sigh.

“I do have one regret, you know.” Niall would stop eating, but he knows that tone in Louis’s voice, so he just raises his eyebrows and chews, waiting to see where Louis is going with this. “I feel bad about ruining you for other men.”

Now he wishes he _had_ stopped eating because Niall starts laughing so hard he almost chokes. “What are you on about?”

“I’m just saying you’ve clearly got a type and it clearly started with me.”

Louis’s batting his eyelashes at Niall, baring his teeth in what Niall assumes is supposed to be a grin but comes off more like a sneer.

“Dating some skinny brunette with a ton of tattoos on his arms. Like I’m not going to realize you’ve still got a little thing for me, like in high school. It’s alright, I know I’m irresistible. I get it.”

“Oh fuck off. And anyway, we’re not dating.” Niall pauses, frowns. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

The laughter is so loud that it startles Niall and makes him jump, frown deepening as he waits for Louis to collect himself. Louis, who has tears in his eyes, Louis who is holding his sides like they hurt.

“You don’t think? How do you not know if you’re dating someone?”

“I just, I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”

“He keeps a fucking yoga mat here. I think you guys are dating.”

* * *

“I want you to meet my friends,” Niall murmurs almost a week later, once he’s got Harry naked and stretched out on his bed.

He keeps nipping at the soft flesh at Harry’s hips, using one callused finger to trace the dark curls of the laurels tattooed there. At this point, Harry’d agree to anything, really, so long as Niall gets a move on with it and touches his dick.

There’s none of the warm, fuzzy feelings he thought he’d feel about Niall wanting them to be a Them in front of his friends. Maybe it’s because Harry already knows most of Niall’s friends; after all, they sometimes ran in the same circles or else they never would’ve had the good luck of meeting. Maybe it’s because Harry tends to be sure about things – it’s just how he sees the world – and yes he’s still never had anything that was as much of a sure thing as he and Niall. But he knows Niall was aiming for a big move, knows the reaction he was looking for, so he smiles and reaches down, trailing his fingers along one flushed cheek. Tries to be soft and warm and romantic for Niall.

“I’d love to, babe. Tell me when and I’ll be there.”

He’s running a thumb across Niall’s lower lip and pulling it slightly down, marveling at how pretty Niall’s mouth is and thinking about how much he wants it on him, when Niall says “tomorrow?”, the hope practically gleaming in his eyes.

Harry nudges harder at Niall’s lip and smiles when his mouth pops open. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Tomorrow. Meet the friends.”

Niall’s hair is so soft between his fingers and he almost feels bad for pulling, but then the flush rises higher on Niall’s cheeks and Harry is so done talking about friends and meeting anyone and ever leaving this bedroom, for that matter.

“Wanna fuck your mouth.”

When Niall licks his lips, his tongue bumps against the tip of Harry’s thumb, and it’s a small matter of movement to get his mouth fully wrapped around so he can make a big show of hollowing his cheeks against it.

“You want that?”

Niall nods, keeps nodding until he hears Harry chuckle low in his throat, feels spit pool in his mouth with how much he wants that.

“Knees,” is all Harry has to say and then Niall’s clambering off the bed and dropping to his knees off the side, one hand still curved over Harry’s hip like he can’t let go.

Harry feels practically delirious, looking down at Niall and his pretty, pretty pink mouth and his blown pupils, the flush riding high on his cheeks clear down the middle of his chest, the thick, red curve of his cock standing at attention. His hair is longer now than it was when they first met, lists over to one side, and what starts as a tender push to get the bangs out of his face ends up being a sharp tug when Niall’s tongue flicks out to lick at his slit.

“Come on.” Niall sounds almost grumpy, which is funny considering the way his eyes rolled back when Harry pulled on his hair seconds before.

“God I love your mouth,” Harry mumbles and, before Niall has a chance to make a retort, he is using his grip in all that blond hair and pulling Niall’s head down and he is so good for him, humming and flattening his tongue to make it easier as Harry pushes his dick deep.

It is so easy to be good for Harry when he’s making these appreciative noises low in his throat, big hands curved against Niall’s head and guiding him in being exactly what Harry needs out of him right now, because it makes him feel like Harry doesn’t want anything more in the world than to be touching Niall. Just the thought makes him moan around where Harry is fucking into his mouth, his own cock untouched and hard and heavy between his legs. He needs to do something, can’t just let Harry use his mouth, so he rubs his hands up Harry’s strong, lean thighs and then digs his nails in right before the flesh gives way to the curve of his ass. Which gets him a startled Harry yelling and thrusting too far, too fast, and he almost gags.

“Sorry, Nialler,” Harry says from above, but he doesn’t sound sorry, and when Niall meets his eyes, he doesn’t even try to hide the smirk, so Niall rakes his nails down Harry’s thighs and looks as smug as one can when they’ve got someone fucking into their mouth at the shudder that wracks Harry’s body.

That is what really sets Harry off and he’s thrusting into Niall’s mouth, thumb stroking gently at where Niall’s lips are stretched around him and it sounds obscene, really, because there is so much spit and precome in his mouth at this point, but Niall keeps his jaw just slack enough and his eyes drift closed and Harry can see the dark line of his eyelashes against his cheek and he is such a fucking goner over this boy it is ridiculous.

Niall knows when Harry’s close because the hair pulling gets a little sharper and his moans start from deeper in his lungs until it feels like Niall can feel them echoing through his own bones. “Fuck, baby—“

He hums happily and, on a stroke when Harry pulls out, adjusts his tongue so it is rubbing more forcefully along the bottom of Harry’s cock. His hands spasm where they’re gripping Harry’s hips from sheer instinct to reach for his own dick. He can’t remember being this turned on in ages and it isn’t like he and Harry aren’t fucking like bunnies any time they get the chance. It’s this in particular—Harry pushing into his mouth, Harry using him—that is doing it. So he groans again and Harry’s grip in his hair twists and it is just this side of too painful, and Harry’s rhythm starts to dissolve with just enough warning time that Niall can prepare himself.

Once he’s swallowed, he pulls off with a little sigh and lays his head on Harry’s thigh. Strong fingers are massaging his scalp and if it weren’t for the fact that he still needs to get off, is, in fact, focused singularly on getting off, he could fall asleep right there.

His lips feel raw and bruised and from the way Harry is looking at him, he thinks they probably look it. But what Niall is really worried about is the fact that his dick is still throbbing and neither of them have a hand on it, so he reaches down and rocks a heel against his groin, teeth worrying the edge of his lip to try and hold back the groan.

“Haz, please.”

Then Niall’s climbing up, perching easily on Harry’s lap, biting his lip at the friction of his dick bumping into Harry’s stomach as he presses close. It’s the groan more than his movement that startles Harry out of his fucked out bliss. The sound of hushed pleasure and knowing he isn’t doing anything to help it along pushes him into movement. He rolls them so that he’s half splayed over Niall, Niall’s head cradled in the crook of one elbow and the other hand, slicked with spit, reaching down between their bodies to wrap hot and strong around Niall’s cock.

It won’t be long, Harry realizes with a slight tinge of regret. Niall’s already half out of his mind for it, but Harry still makes it good for him, rubbing his thumb in circles over the tip where he knows it gets almost too sensitive, tracing the thick veins standing in stark relief along the underside like he knows Niall likes.

If it were any other night, Niall would be almost embarrassed about how desperate he is just to come. His hips are making these aborted little thrusts up into Harry’s fist and he can’t stop mumbling an incoherent mixture of “fuck, Harry, god,” hands fisting in the sheets.

“You’re gonna look so good when you come, Ni, you always look so beautiful for me. I love watching you.”

Harry’s voice is doing funny things to Niall’s head. His skin feels like it is on fire. Then it’s all stars behind his eyelids as his head thrashes from side to side and shouting Harry’s name and the hot slide of jizz across his stomach and Harry murmuring into his ear the entire time about how good he looks, only quieting when Niall stills.

He can already feel sleep tugging at him, but after a moment he forces one eye open to look at Harry, who is using one of their shirts to clean his hand and Niall’s stomach.

“Good?” Niall asks.

His voice is so raspy from having his throat fucked that Harry looks up immediately, eyes dark. But then he smiles too, face gone all soft and fond in the way that makes Niall’s stomach twist. It doesn’t help that feeling when Harry leans in and kisses him like he’s something precious, lips light against Niall’s.

“Good.”

Sleep comes easily after that, face tucked into Harry’s neck, their skin sweat-sticky and hot but cooling quickly in the breeze from the window.

**************

When Niall wakes up the next morning, Harry is still passed out, curls stuck to his forehead and little noises escaping from his parted lips. He looks younger in sleep, even softer than usual, and so, even though they should both be getting up, Niall lets him sleep as he gathers his things to shower.

By the time he walks back into his room, towel wrapped around his waist, Harry is only just swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Niall walks over to his cluttered desk and in the full-length mirror someone had nailed to the wall probably 20 years ago, watches as Harry blearily rubs his eyes and shake his curls out. He looks sleepy still, and Niall can see every curl and line of black ink Harry has tattooed on him. It makes his mouth water, but they have plans today and they’re already running behind.

“Here, I got you a present,” he says, turning around and walking over to stand in between Harry’s legs, gently tugging a green beanie down on top of his curls.

The sight of his hair almost completely obscuring Harry’s eyes makes him grin and he can’t help but lean in to press the quickest kiss against Harry’s lips before practically running out of reach. They’ll never make it to Liam’s for the game if Harry gets his hands on Niall when they’re both naked and blissed out like this.

“So you can stop stealing mine in the mornings.”

Harry immediately pulls the hat off, tracing one finger over the ‘G’ embroidered there, mouth curved in a sleepy smile.

“Did you really think I don’t own a piece of Packers clothing?”

“All you townies are always wearing Badgers regalia, I didn’t know.” Where are his lucky underwear? He’s never watched a game without them, not for almost 6 years. But they aren’t in any of his drawers, or even tossed over by the clothes hamper. “Figure better safe than sorry. Can’t be caught outside with you today unless you’re in Pack colors.”

Niall thinks, not for the first time since Harry’s belongings started accumulating on any flat surface in here and he stopped wanting to waste time straightening up, that he might be better off just lighting a match and starting fresh. Still, not being able to find underwear is a new low.

“You looking for these?”

He turns just in time to watch Harry stand up and slide the purple briefs up his long legs, settling them in place with a snap of the elastic, making a tsking sound low in his throat.

“You’re giving me shit about Pack when you wear Vikings underwear to watch games?”

It’s just a few steps until he is in front of the mirror, stretching and preening, rolling onto his tippy-toes and watching the way his ass curves, watching the way Niall watches him.

“Just get dressed, and give me those please!”

“Not a chance, Nialler. Not a chance.”

 ************** 

 

When they finally park in front of the house, Harry’s looking almost like one of the gang in ripped, black skinny jeans, a Driver jersey he’d had stuffed into his bookbag, and the beanie Niall’d given him earlier (although it’s arranged a little more artfully now, curls exposed around the sides of his face instead of covering his eyes). Only the two of them know about the Vikings briefs— Niall’s lucky briefs— or the fact that Harry’d convinced Niall to go commando under his black sweats.

Liam greets them at the door with a “hello shot” and a cold beer for each of them and by kick-off, Niall is already buzzed and warm and happy. He loves college. This is everything he loves in the world. Beer and football and cute guys, well, a particular cute guy, singular, and someone has a guitar somewhere that he knows he’ll get a chance to play later, when the drinking continues into night and more people trickle into the house until it is bursting at the seams. But that is later and now it’s just Liam and some of his frat brothers, a few girls Niall recognizes from the sorority crowd, Louis and his new girl, a few guys from Niall’s engineering classes, Niall, and Harry. And beer. lots of beer.

There is a touchdown. An explosion of sounds, of cheering. Louis’s over on the couch now, stealing Harry’s beanie and ruffling his hair. _When did they get so close_ , Niall wonders, but he can’t focus on it. Then there are more beers being passed around, shots at half-time when things look dire. Shots when they take the lead again. He feels just woozy enough to know he should slow down, to want to pull Harry into him and cuddle into the couch and take a nap.

Instead, Niall wraps one strong arm over Harry’s shoulders and just tugs him closer to where Niall is tucked into the corner, humming happily when Harry snuggles in. Harry smiles sweetly up into his face and Niall smiles back immediately, leaning to give him a quick, exaggerated peck on the lips. When he feels Harry try to discreetly palm his dick through his sweats, he can’t help but throw his head back and laugh.

“Nope! No way, Haz.” Niall clutches Harry’s hand in his, keeps holding it as they scoot back into the couch. Harry settles after that.

Well, settles until after they win the game, when he pushes Niall into the downstairs bathroom and drops to his knees in front of him. The blowjob is even better than maintaining their winning streak.

* * *

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you own the Dairy Bar!”

Harry watches as Niall slings himself down onto the bench across from him at the picnic table and reaches automatically for one of the carefully wrapped sandwiches sitting next to Harry’s bookbag. When he has to stop him and swap the sandwiches, explaining “Yours has an ‘N’ on the wrapper, I made it with that ham you like,” and trying not to blush, Niall just grins at him and then shakes his head a little like he can’t believe Harry.

“Don’t change the subject. You said you _worked_ there!” He’d do a lot better with the indignant act if his mouth wasn’t somehow already full of sandwich, but Harry decides to humor him anyway. For the most part.

“I do work there, and I don’t own it, my mom does.”

“That’s another thing, are you hiding me from your mom? I’ve gone to meet you after work, how close was I to your house?”

Harry loves his house, he really does. And he loves his mom. But he also grew up feeling acutely aware of the difference between the rich students and the “townies,” between the historic houses of the tenured professors and the little craftsman his family had always lived in, so maybe it is a sore spot for him, just a little. Not that he isn’t proud of it, but that anyone else would ever judge his home and find it lacking is a risk he mostly tries to avoid.

“We were across the street, I live right across from the shop.”

Niall’s mouth gapes open and gives Harry a full view of his half-chewed lunch and really, the boy is lucky he is so cute because sometimes he is just disgusting.

Harry holds up a hand to stop Niall from talking. “Finish your lunch. You have class in 20 minutes and last time you ran out of time to eat you were grumpy the rest of the day. I thought Louis was going to kill you. I’ll text my mom and see if tomorrow works for dinner, okay?”

He gets a pleased nod and a grin in response and they play footsy under the table while they eat their sandwiches, so Harry figures he isn’t in too much trouble.

Plus, it isn’t like Niall has much room to judge him.

He hasn’t even broached the topic of Harry meeting _his_ family.

* * *

They agree that Harry will go pick Niall up at the apartment for dinner, so he doesn’t have to feel awkward about finding the house or finding the wrong house or any of those things that make Niall’s palms start to sweat and his brain start to feel fuzzy with worry.

Before he goes, Harry gives Gemma strict instructions to play at least a little nice, since he thinks he might be Niall’s first proper boyfriend, because he doesn’t want her to scare him off. He kisses his mom on the cheek and makes the required impressed hums over the pot of food, insists it smells delicious, and then goes to collect Niall.

Who is, as it turns out, having quite a few pre-meet the parents jitters and has locked himself in his room. Harry looks to Louis, who is just sitting on the arm of the couch watching it all go down and shoving chips into his mouth, for advice, but Louis just shrugs in response. Harry’d like to punch him for being so spectacularly useless.

“Nialler, come on. I’m supposed to be the nervous one.”

“What if your sister hates me?” The question is a little clearer, like maybe he’s right on the other side of the door instead of laying with his face pressed into a pillow, which is what it had sounded like at first.

“Gemma hates everyone, it is part of her whole thing, don’t let that get to you! She’ll love you more than she loves me, probably.”

The door opens after a moment and Niall is blinking up at Harry, cheeks red but otherwise looking mostly fine. Harry can see the piles of clothes on top of the bed that mean Niall must’ve changed and changed and changed again.

“Are you really nervous, Haz?”

His voice sounds so small and wobbly that Harry really can’t help but wrap himself around him, tucking his face against Niall’s neck.

“No, not really. I know they’ll love you.”

There is a gagging sound right around the same moment a Dorito hits his arm. “Get a room, you two! This sappy love shit is killing me!”

They both flip their middle fingers at Louis at the same time before heading for the door to leave and Harry thinks it just might be love.

The drive is short since it’s just Madison and Harry’s house is right off campus, but he is so full of energy that he’s glad for the opportunity to get out of the car. When they pull up in front of the house, he tries to see it all through Niall’s eyes.

His mom’s blue Prius is in the driveway, dated already and rusting in one spot on the side, its bumper full of stickers saying “save this” and “save that,” the equality sticker displayed prominently on the window next to a PFLAG logo, reminding him about how happy she’d seemed when he came out, how in his meaner moments as a teenager he accused her of using him to up her “liberal hippie cred.” The herb garden in front of the porch is overgrown but healthy enough, he guesses. He planted the rosemary and is pretty proud of how well it is doing; Gemma calls it his baby. _The paint on the shutters needs touched up_ , he thinks. He’ll have to rope Niall into helping him fix that next summer. It’s small, but he supposes Niall probably thinks it is cute for a city house. The porch is cramped instead of sprawling, though, and their lot is less than a quarter acre, which is bigger than most of their neighbors’, but it still must look so much different from what Niall is used to.

Niall’s hand squeezing his pulls him out of his thoughts.

“It’s really cute, Hazza. I love it.”

As soon as they cross the threshold into the house, they hear Gemma and Anne in the kitchen fighting over whether the food needs more pepper.

“Mom? We’re here,” Harry calls out ahead of them, leading Niall through the house by their joined hands.

Anne’s head pops through the doorway into the kitchen and she is smiling so wide and that’s all it takes for Harry not to worry anymore. Because his mom is wonderful and funny and beautiful and their house is _theirs_ and Harry has always thought it was cute and Niall tells the truth so if he says he loves it, he really must. He gives Niall’s hand one more reassuring squeeze and then goes to make the introductions.

Or, well, tries to make introductions, because as soon as he opens his mouth his mom is saying, “Oh, Harry, you didn’t tell me he was much handsomer than you!” and wrapping her arms around Niall in tight hug.

“Not that that would be too hard,” Gemma says, waving from where she is leaning against the counter by the stove. “I’m the smarter, prettier sibling: Gemma.”

“Nice to meet you, Gemma. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Styles.”

“Nonsense, call me Anne. Mr. Styles and I were through a long time ago,” she says, pushing Niall toward the dining room and tugging his denim jacket off at the same time, handing it to Harry to hang. “I hope you like pumpkin, I made a roasted pumpkin and quinoa salad for dinner.”

Harry is going to owe Niall one hell of a blowjob after this, he realizes when he comes back from hanging their jackets up to find Gemma on one side of Niall and his mom on the other, both of them fawning over him in their own way. Gemma is grilling him on the ramifications of a certain engineering something or another on the climate. Harry doesn’t really follow the conversation but then Gemma _had_ gotten the science brains. He was always better with words and art.

“I do seem to recall that I promised Niall he would actually get to eat if he joined us for dinner?”

Harry interrupts once he’s portioned food onto everyone’s plates and the conversation has still shown no signs of slowing. The look that crosses Niall’s face is something like relief, which is good because otherwise he’d feel guilty about the embarrassed look on his mom’s face.

“Of course, of course, eat! Did I ask if you liked pumpkin, Niall?”

Harry rolls his eyes but when he looks at Niall, he’s smiling. ‘I love them,’ he mouths.

‘I love you,’ Harry mouths back, but Niall’s already turned his attention to his plate and is telling Anne how delicious dinner looks.

 _It_ _’_ _s alright,_ Harry thinks. _I_ _’_ _ll have plenty of opportunities to tell him._

* * *

A haunted hayride is one of the worst ideas Harry has ever had. It seems like a good gimmick at the time; a way to spend the evening with Niall pressed against him in public, to be outside and feel the fall air, to get tipsy on spiked apple cider. And Niall plays along (at first anyway), laughing as Harry bundles into a plaid and a grey zip-up hoodie with a denim jacket on top of that, acts scandalized when Harry fills a flask with whiskey on their way out of the door, keeps his brave face on all the way up until the tractor takes its first rolling lurch forward, and then immediately digs his fingers into Harry’s thigh and hides most of his face against Harry’s shoulder.

“Scared?” Harry whispers, rubbing his cheek against the messy too-long hair sticking out in tufts from Niall’s head.

When he nods, it just makes Harry chuckle and pat his hand, lacing their fingers and giving one tight squeeze. And if Harry is feeling a little proud of himself for coming up with such a good plan, well, no one has to know but him.

The proud feeling lasts until the exact moment that the actor with the chainsaw runs at their group and Harry, drunk on adrenaline and Niall, extends his leg to taunt the actor. Niall’s grip on his hand turns immediately to crushing force, nails biting skin, and there’s a strangled sounding “Haz!” When Harry turns to look at Niall, he looks paler than death itself and all that pride turns to sick with the knowledge that he’s pushed Niall too far.

After the ride, Harry can’t seem to bundle Niall off quickly enough until they’re sat in the combo gift shop/restaurant at the front (“what a weird fuckin’ place,” Niall’d said when they pulled up in front, groups of people walking away from the attraction deck in shirts that said “I survived!”), apple cider in hand, and Harry’s jacket wrapped around Niall.

“Ni, Nialler, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it would be so bad for you!”

“Haz, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’m not a baby.”

True as that may be, it doesn’t stop Harry from feeling terrible. He pours a heavy glug of whiskey into both of their apple ciders and crowds close to Niall.

“I shouldn’t have talked you into it,” he says. He sounds absolutely pitiful.

Niall must think so too because he leans in to press one quick kiss to Harry’s lips.

“It just—seeing that guy run at you. It didn’t feel fake anymore. I didn’t want anyone to hurt you.”

“No one is going to hurt me and no one is going to hurt you. I won’t let them.”

Which makes Niall roll his eyes and Harry feels a little better because, if he is being too sappy for Niall’s taste, he must be feeling a little better too.

 **************

 

The thing is, by the time they get back to Niall and Louis’s apartment, they’re both pink-cheeked from cold and whiskey and their fingers are icy even though they’re clasped together, and Niall doesn’t seem so scared anymore, but he keeps crowding into Harry’s personal space like he’s trying to remind himself he’s okay, keeps brushing his lips against the pulse below Harry’s jawline, and things feel different. Heavy. Not for the first time, Harry regrets pushing Niall to go on the hayride. He hadn’t known it would affect him so much, but Harry can’t forget the way all the color just drained from his face when Harry was teasing the actor with the chainsaw.

So maybe that’s part of why he can’t even make it past the front hallway without leaning his body weight into Niall and pressing him against the wall, why the thought of waiting till they get to his bed to expose all that lovely pink skin sounds like torture, why he hums and strips them of their top layers and makes himself small against Niall’s chest and whispers “I want you to fuck me tonight” but says it like he’s making proclamations of love. He wants to show Niall how okay they both are, how safe they are, how alive and healthy and young they are. And well, yeah, he also really just really wants to give Niall this. Wants Niall to give this to him.

Niall’s lips are sliding along his jaw on a collision course with his mouth, but they stop when he hears Harry.

“You sure?”

Harry has never been more sure of anything; he has wanted this practically since they first met, but he just nods and turns his face toward Niall so that he’ll kiss him finally.

It tastes like apple and whiskey and the faint mint of the chapstick Niall started borrowing from Harry when it got colder out, like heat and sweetness and Niall, and he thinks _I love you._

They toe clumsily out of their shoes in the hallway. Harry says a quick prayer of thanks that Louis is gone for the weekend because last time he’d tripped over one of Harry’s shoes, he’d retaliated by hiding it for two weeks before Niall could convince him to give it back. And these are his favorite boots.

When they bump into the back of the couch, Niall pins Harry with his hips and starts sucking a bloom of red onto his neck. Harry only stops him so he can peel their t-shirts off so it’s warm skin to warm skin when they touch again, and the chill is finally out of their fingers and their blood and their bones.

“Forget the bed, this is far enough,” Niall says and Harry doesn’t mean to, but he laughs a soft huff of breath that makes Niall’s hair flutter around his face (which makes Harry’s heart just kind of feel like it stops).

“I’m good, but I’m not so good we don’t need lube, babe.”

The flush of red starts high on his cheeks and in the middle of his chest and spreads from there. Harry wants to kiss him everywhere the blush flares, wants to feel the heat of it with his lips like he’s testing for a fever, and isn’t even aware of deciding to do so until Niall’s fingers tangle in his hair and tug sharply when Harry’s teeth brush one nipple.

His dick gives a hard throb against the fly of his jeans and oh yeah, pants: they’re still on, which really isn’t okay with Harry. He flicks the button of Niall’s jeans open and lets his knuckles graze the hard line of Niall as he pulls the zipper down, dropping to his knees so he can peel the fabric down his thighs and carefully off of each leg and, maybe partially, so he can lean in and ghost his mouth over where Niall is clearly visible through his black briefs. His tongue finds the wet smear of pre-come in the fabric and he gives a happy hum when Niall’s hips buck forward at the touch.

“Bed,” Niall huffs, tugging twice at Harry’s curls.

Harry can hear the waver in his voice, practically feel his control unraveling, and it makes his toes curl with want as he stands and leads Niall into the room by his hand. He barely has the chance to climb onto the bed before Niall’s on him, peeling his jeans and briefs off in one pass, mouthing at the curve of his hip and marking it for them to see the next day.

“I've been thinking about this since I saw you at that party,” Harry says, not even meaning to start talking but he can’t stop. “Fucked myself on my fingers that night thinking about this.”

He remembers the feeling, remembers clenching his eyes shut, picturing blue eyes and imagining what Niall’s cock would look like, what it’d feel like in his hands and inside him. Remembers biting his lip so hard that he tasted blood when he came.

“Show me,” Niall mumbles, sitting up and away from Harry’s body so quickly that Harry wants to cry about how unfair it is.

When he adds “please?” in a low voice, thumb gently rubbing at the bone of Harry’s ankle, Harry can’t scramble for the bottle in the nightstand and slick his fingers fast enough.

The angle isn’t as good as it could be, but it’s fine and he mostly just wants to get past this so he can have Niall inside him finally. But there is Niall, sitting on his heels between Harry’s legs, just watching as Harry opens himself up – fingers clenched on his thighs, pupils completely blown – so Harry plays into it, wants Niall not to be able to not touch him. He rocks down onto his fingers. Gasps. Bites his bottom lip red and swollen. Gives his cock a few lazy tugs. Shuts his eyes and listens to the hard drag of Niall’s breathing, but that’s just for him. Not for show.

When Niall murmurs his name like a prayer and brushes a palm reverently up Harry’s calf to his thigh, he almost sobs in relief.

“C’mon, babe. M’ready.” The words feel unwieldy in Harry’s mouth, like he’s drunker than he knows he is, but Niall gets the point because there’s the rustling of the foil packet and then a warm hand wrapped around his wrist, moving his hand out of the way.

“So fucking beautiful, Haz,” Niall whispers, lips trailing across the swallows tattooed on Harry’s chest.

Harry can’t even respond because Niall’s hitching his hips forward and pressing so slowly; it’s been since before they met at the party that he’s done this and he feels like he is going to fly apart if Niall keeps going but like he’ll die if it stops, and it’s so much that it’s like he forgets to breath until Niall’s hips come flush against his and he sucks in a loud mouthful of air. His lips find Niall’s and neither of them would be getting many points for technique at this point, it is just as much them loudly breathing against the other’s mouth as it is hot slick tongue, but it all feels so good and then Niall hits this angle that makes Harry groan and nip at Niall’s lower lip, makes his eyes flutter shut.

“Yeah?” Niall breathes, one hand curling over Harry’s hip and holding him so he can fuck into that angle again and again and again, ’til everything other than the feel of Niall inside him and the hold on his hips is just white noise to Harry. He can hear himself making these punched out sounds and babbling Niall’s name, but he doesn’t care, can’t care.

The sudden hot grip of Niall’s fist around his dick makes his back arch up off the bed and Niall’s mumbling about how beautiful he is, about how good he feels, and he’s lost that angle from before as his rhythm becomes more punishing but when Harry spills hot over Niall’s fist and their bellies, he’s gasping “I, ah, I love you so fucking much” and every muscle in Niall’s body goes taut as a bowstring for a split-second before he’s biting down into the flesh of Harry’s shoulder to muffle his groans as he comes.

When Niall rolls to the side, his arm brings Harry along with him so that they’re still curved together, chests heaving.

Niall mumbles “gimme a sec, I’ll go get a towel,” without even opening his eyes like they haven’t learned by now that the only thing Niall wants after he gets off is sleep, and Harry can barely resist the urge to laugh.

“I’ve got it,” is what Harry says even as he thinks _I love you_ , as he leans in and presses a kiss to the middle of Niall’s chest before disposing of the condom in the trash next to the bed and padding naked into the bathroom to clean himself off and retrieve a warm washcloth to gently dab at Niall’s skin with.

“Feels good,” Niall says sleepily at the first touch of the cloth.

“Gotta take care of my Nialler,” and it’s meant to sound like a joke but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, that it isn’t exactly what Harry’d been thinking as he warmed it up.

The only response he gets is a little hum and that is alright because then Harry is tossing the wash cloth into the corner where the hamper is and climbing back into bed.

Immediately upon his return to the bed, Niall gathers him into his arms and kisses the lingering red bite on his shoulder. He tucks them both into the covers and when he mumbles “thank you,” Harry hears I love you.

* * *

It becomes a game. Harry and Zayn make bets – at Harry’s urging – on whether Niall will give in and invite him home to see his family first or say “I love you” first. They don’t acknowledge the possibility that neither will happen because, even though Niall is more closed off than Harry realized at first, it hasn’t stopped him from thinking they’re a sure thing.

Just a sure thing where one half of the involved parties seem determined to pretend they’re a _casual_ thing.

Sometimes Harry has to act like it doesn’t hurt his feelings. But other times, like when they’re in bed and Niall bumps their teeth in his haste to kiss and they dissolve into laughter for so long they almost forget what they were doing in the first place, or when he looks up and sees Niall crossing the grass to throw himself down next to where Harry is sprawled doing his reading, or when he wakes up before Niall on a lazy Sunday morning and he gets the chance to just watch the way his face moves in his sleep, other times it isn’t even pretending. It’s just so _good_ that he can’t worry about the things that aren’t perfect.

It is still Harry’s least favorite game he’s ever played.

* * *

They had both been completely trashed before they even started to stumble home, but Niall goes to the fridge automatically to grab two beers and, when he comes back into the living room, Louis is already sprawled on the couch with a bag of Cheetos on his chest and the tv remote in one hand. Niall hands over a beer and uses the opportunity to steal the bag as he collapses onto the couch.

“Harry asked if he could meet my family again today,” he says around a mouth full of nuclear orange dust.

“Why can’t he?”

“Are you kidding me? You know I haven’t told them yet.”

Louis scoffs, which pisses Niall off because he was looking for someone to commiserate with, not another goddamn lecture.

“You’re just wasting time, Neil. Fucking tell them already.”

“I was an altar boy, Lou. You don’t get it.”

He doesn’t know why it’s important right now that he was an altar boy, but it feels important. Like maybe it’ll help Louis understand.

“Then enlighten me. Because that guy fucking loves you and you’re risking throwing it all away like your mom doesn’t think the whole world revolves around you no matter what you do.”

“My mom isn’t my whole family. You’ve heard the shit Greg says. Fuck, my dad almost joined the Church.”

“Even the damn pope is not totally anti-gay anymore, man.”

“I can’t tell them. I can’t lose my family, Lou.”

He thinks he sees pity on Louis’s face, but then it is right back to anger and Niall really doesn’t want to fight right now, not with Louis. It’s looking more and more like he doesn’t have a choice.

“You’re not going to lose them. But if you keep hiding that part of your life, you might just lose Harry.”

It feels like his heart stops in his chest. Just the fucking thought of it cuts through his drunken haze like a hot knife through butter.

“Don’t fucking say that. You can’t understand where I’m coming from.”

“You’re being a coward.” The word hits Niall as sure as if Louis’s fist had connected with his jaw. _Coward._

“Until you have to tell your parents that you are something you were raised your whole life to believe was a sin, you can’t preach at me about this, Lou!”

“It isn’t just your problem, Niall! You’re letting your issues with your family fuck up Harry’s life and I’m over here lying to my mom every damn time I talk to her and she asks about you and if you’re seeing anyone and if you’re happy.”

“Don’t make this about you,” Niall warns, voice pitching lower.

“I’m not, I’m just trying to show you it isn’t just about you.”

“How many times do I have to say this before you understand. _You. Have. No. Fucking. Right._ You don’t know what it’s like, you can’t know, so stop trying to tell me how to deal with this.”

They’re both too drunk for this and Niall knows he is going to regret it in the morning, but right now all he can see is red and he wants to fight until blood is drawn, until maybe he feels a little better about the tight coil of anger burning in his gut. Some part of his brain knows he should be thankful when Louis quietly stands up and goes to his bedroom, but instead he just gets angrier that Louis thinks he can walk away like that.

 

 ************** 

When Harry wakes Niall the next morning, he’s still on the couch, fists clenched, an ache in his jaw from grinding his teeth, and he can’t even begin to answer the question he sees in Harry’s eyes because he’s not sure he knows the answer himself. He remembers the word “coward,” remembers Louis stalking quietly away from him, remembers vividly imagining the way it’d feel to slam his fist into Louis’s perfect nose and feel it crumble. All of which only serves to make him feel like shit because how could he want to hurt Louis? Louis who has been there for him for as long as he can remember? Louis who is still his best friend? Louis who knows him better than his own brother does?

“I brought breakfast,” Harry offers after a moment, sounding hesitant.

He is holding a cup of coffee toward Niall with one hand and gesturing to the table with the other. Niall sees donuts and bananas and orange juice and almost, _almost_ , laughs at the assortment.

“I’d kiss you but my mouth tastes like stale beer.”

His voice is a croak that reminds him of all the yelling that happened the night before and he can see the frown on Harry’s face deepen. _Coward, coward, coward,_ his brain taunts, and Niall just wants to stop feeling like shit. Wants to stop hurting the people he loves. Maybe that’s why he blurts what comes next before he even processed he was going to ask.

“Do you want to come home with me next weekend?”

Harry looks startled for all of about .5 seconds and then he’s launched himself into Niall’s arms, kissing him even though Niall has hangover breath, and the smile against Niall’s mouth feels so good that it’s easy to ignore the feeling of dread starting already in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

The drive is quiet and tense, but that’s totally Niall’s doing. It takes about 30 minutes before Harry curls up into the seat, resting his head against the seatbelt and drifting off the sleep. Which leaves Niall by himself, thinking about all the ways this could go wrong, imagining his dad looking between his face and Harry’s and telling them to get out, fighting back panic at the thought. Harry thinks he is meeting Niall’s family as his boyfriend and Niall can’t disappoint him, but he’s also beginning to think he can’t possibly be strong enough to deal with the potential fallout of coming out to his parents with a boyfriend in tow. Bobby would never raise a hand against Niall, but he might tell them to leave and Niall doesn’t want Harry to see that.

“What’re you thinking about?” He jumps at the sudden break in the silence and looks over to see green eyes blinking sleepily at him.

“Nothing, nothing. Did I wake you up?”

Harry shakes his head and frowns before reaching out to lace his fingers with Niall’s and squeeze once, gently.

“It’ll be okay, babe. Moms and dads love me. I’m great.”

Fuck. It wouldn’t take a genius to hear the hurt behind the teasing there.

“No, that’s not what I’m thinking about. Of course they’ll love you. It’s nothing, I promise.” He spares a glance at Harry, raises their hands so he can kiss the back of Harry’s. “I know they’ll love you.”

He gets a tentative smile in return so he tries to squash the butterflies in his stomach that are threatening to fuck everything up. His family is going to be okay. He and Harry are going to be okay. That’s what he keeps telling himself. And he mostly believes it, clear up until he and Harry are walking through the door of the house he grew up in.

“Oh, baby! I’m so glad you came home!”

There are tears glistening in Maura’s eyes and Niall can’t help but pick her up in a hug that spins from side to side. She feels so small now, which is stupid, because she isn’t wasting away or anything. Niall just always thinks of her as larger than life.

“Mom, you knew I was coming home. You act like I’ve been gone for years!”

“You know how she is. If she can’t see you every day, she isn’t happy.” That’d be Greg, peeking in from the dining room. “Hurry up the hellos, yeah? We’re hungry and you’re late.”

Niall flips him off over their dad’s shoulder while telling his dad how happy he is to see him.

“Manners, Niall. I taught you better,” Maura chastises.

She gestures for Harry, who is just standing in the door with his bag slung over his shoulder, looking… well, terrified, to come in.

“Come in here, excuse my son, he has apparently forgotten everything about his good Catholic upbringing.”

The flush is immediate, burning across Niall’s cheeks and down his throat.

“I’m sorry, shit—“

That gets him a swift cuff to the back of his head from his dad and Niall is really just fucking this up royally; he wanted it to be perfect.

“Harry, this is my mom, Maura… my dad, Bobby… and my brother Greg there in the doorway.”

He wants to puke. He’s going to puke. He opens his mouth, the voice in the back of his head chanting _boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend_ , and what comes out is: “Everyone, this is my friend Harry.”

The look that flashes across Harry’s face hurts so much that it takes Niall’s breath away. But then Harry is smiling, shaking hands, dazzling them all once everyone is seated around the table. Getting laughs at all the right places in his stories, wowing Maura with his flawless manners.

He doesn’t so much as look at Niall for the rest of dinner.

In fact, Niall doesn’t even attempt to engage him until after they leave the table and after they all watch a movie, once Greg has left to drive back to his own place and everyone else is tucked safely into bed. At that point, he appears in the doorway to the guest room where Harry is bunked, shame burning hot in his gut.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry,” as he closes the door.

“I’m sorry,” as he bumps up against the edge of the bed, hands balling in fists at his side when Harry’s only response, other than cold silence, is to turn away from him.

“I am so fucking sorry.”

He sounds wrecked and Harry doesn’t ever want to hear Niall sound like that, but he sounds about as bad as Harry felt in the moment Niall said “friend,” so some not-insignificant part of him feels like Niall deserves it. He just keeps facing the wall, teeth worrying the edge of his lip to keep him from talking, from giving in.

It isn’t until the door closes softly on Niall’s way out that he can make himself relax. He doesn’t get much sleep that night.

 **************

 

Harry finds Niall out on the front porch the next morning, cup of coffee in hand, sitting barefoot on the front steps in his flannel pajama pants and a soft-looking gray t-shirt. It’s weird to see him here, fields and trees and outbuildings as far as the eye can see, so totally divorced from the context where they became Them. It isn’t necessarily a bad weird, either, just…weird.

“Can I sit here?” he asks, voice quiet so as to not startle Niall.

There’s a nod and Niall barely looks toward Harry, but Harry can see the look of apprehension clear on his face, like he’s worried about spooking Harry away.

The farm is exactly like what Harry had imagined. There’s a red barn to the right of them and the door is open enough that Harry can see Bobby inside getting a tractor ready for something or another; Harry doesn’t really understand how it all works. He can imagine Niall running around as a chubby little baby – would bet money that there is, somewhere on this property, a piece of wall with Niall and Greg’s heights as they grew up etched into it. He already saw the crucifix mounted on the wall in what had been the “time out corner” when they were kids. It amazes him that this is in the same state as his crunchy-granola-urbanite upbringing. It’s a totally different world.

He takes a long sip of his coffee, manages to keep his cringing at the lack of sugar to a minimum, and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Niall clears his throat next to him.

“I want this to be a good trip for us, Haz. I fucked up, I know, but can we please start over today?”

Harry wants to tell him that if they’re “starting over,” he’ll march inside and tell Maura that Harry is, in fact, his boyfriend, not his friend. Instead, he nods.

“I can’t tell them yet. I thought I could. I’m so sorry.”

Harry wants to hold Niall’s hand, wants to tell him it’s okay, wants to try to fix whatever it was that shook loose between them last night. Instead, he just knocks their knees together gently and leaves his knee resting against Niall’s.

“I know.”

He doesn’t know whether he’s saying he knows Niall’s sorry or he knows Niall thought he could tell them or even if he knows Niall can’t tell them, but it feels like it needs saying. He takes a drink of coffee and sighs. It feels so good he says it again.

“I know.”

Before he can say anything else, Maura is in the hall leading to the porch and yelling out for their attention.

“Boys, breakfast is ready. I made chocolate chip pancakes! Niall told me they were your favorite, Harry!”

Niall looks so bashful that Harry can’t help but squeeze his shoulder as they stand up and make their way in. Breakfast is easy: Niall’s legs bumping into Harry’s beneath the table, the three of them laughing at stories from Niall’s childhood, and Harry can almost put the day before behind him. He wants to have a good time here and wants to get to know where Niall is from. So he smiles at Niall, discretely squeezes his thigh under cover of the table, and tries not to laugh at the immediate expression of relief on Niall’s face.

They can do this. It’s just a few days. They’ll be fine. They’re a sure thing.

That’s what Harry keeps telling himself and, for the most part, he’s right. The rest of that day, the following day, and the next all pass in a haze of friendly, smiling faces that he’s being introduced to. Niall and Bobby taking him out on four-wheelers to see the expanses of their land, grocery shopping in the same little store that Niall used to bag at as a teenager, Maura cooking so much delicious food that Harry’s surprised they can both still manage to squeeze into their skinny jeans each morning, and more pictures of Niall as a baby and as an awkward teen with braces than Harry has ever seen of himself. It doesn’t feel good, lying to all of these people about what he and Niall are, but if he carefully blanks out his mind when Niall makes the introductions, it also doesn’t feel like his heart is getting stomped _completely_ into the ground. That counts as progress.

It isn’t like they’re doing hard labor or anything, but it’s exhausting in its own way. So when Niall goes to help his dad with a landscaping job that Harry doesn’t understand the specifics of one afternoon, he begs for a nap and ends up sleeping on the porch swing, his knees bent over the arm and feet dangling in mid-air. It isn’t exactly comfortable, but he likes it out here. It feels so different from the bustle and youth and noise of Madison.

He wakes up to Niall’s sweaty, dirt-tinged body collapsing on top of him, forcing the air out of his lungs.

“Wake up, Haz! We’re going to a party!”

“Get off me, you big oaf!” Then— “Wait, what do you mean a party? Where?”

“Friends of mine from high school are having a bonfire. Lots of alcohol. Lots of familiar faces. Louis will be there!” Niall’s voice pitches lower before he continues. “C’mon, babe. We deserve a drink or two with friendly faces.”

Harry had forgotten that Louis had come home for the same trip they did. His heart soars at the idea of going somewhere that he can just be Harry, Niall’s boyfriend, around someone other than Niall himself.

But first, he has to deal with Niall.

“We can’t go anywhere until you shower. You’ve got dirt clear up on your forehead!”

“Admit it, you like me all rugged and dirty, city boy,” Niall teases, leaning down to kiss Harry’s forehead.

It startles Harry because this is the most affectionate he has been since they got here and he doesn’t want to jinx anything, but he also wants to kiss Niall and taste what the sweat and dirt has done to the skin on his jaw. Instead of doing any of that, he just pinches the swell of Niall’s ass and grins up at where Niall is hovering over him.

“I like you any way I can get you, Country Mouse. But you still need to shower and now I’ve got your sweat all over me so I’ve got to change before I can meet anyone else.”

It’s a heavy sigh and Niall melting completely against him, fully dead weight, before Niall finally slides off the swing and grabs one of Harry’s hands to help him up. But he doesn’t let go immediately, instead he just rubs his fingers along Harry’s knuckles and mumbles, “thank you for coming here with me.” Harry’s just noticing the hot feeling of a blush spreading on his cheeks when Niall drops his hand and opens the door for him to go inside.

By the time Niall finishes showering and comes to peek his head into the guest room, Harry has changed more times than he’d like to admit. The whole night feels like a test of some sort and he doesn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb, but he also doesn’t want to have to pretend even more than he’s already doing to be something he’s not. So he settles on a pair of skintight blue jeans with rips in the knees, camel-colored boots, and a red plaid thrown on over a white crew neck. His hair is loose and curly and he’d rather put on a hat, but he knows his hats are kind of ridiculous and he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s making fun of them either.

He’s just sprawled on the bed texting Zayn when he hears Niall clear his throat. Niall looks…good. Fresh. Clean. His skinny legs are in black jeans that Harry thinks might actually be his and there’s a green and white baseball tee pulling across his shoulders. His hair is still a little wet and the makes the contrast between the brown roots and blond stand out even more. He can’t help the appreciative one-over he gives, but Niall is just staring at the length of his body on the bed, so he’s not exactly alone in it. They’ve not had to go this long without touching before; Harry doesn’t like it.

“We leaving?” Harry asks after a minute of silence, standing up.

Niall just nods, then clears his throat again.

“Yeah, if you’re ready. I’ve gotta pick up some beer on our way. You nervous?”

Harry knocks his shoulder against Niall’s and shakes his head.

“Nope. Are you?”

Niall shakes his head right back at Harry, lips curving up into a grin.

“You’re the life of the party and you’re mine, why would I be nervous?”

Harry doesn’t point out that he has a raw spot on the corner of his lip from biting it, that it is one of the most telling nervous tics he’s ever seen. Instead he smiles and nods and follows Niall out to the car and helps carry the beer like a good boyfriend.

Seeing Louis at the bonfire is so exciting that Harry practically launches himself at Louis when he sees him, greeting him with a big hug like it’d been years since they last saw one another.

“It’s no Madison, right?” Louis says by way of a greeting.

Harry nods so earnestly that Louis laughs at him and then claps a hand onto his back. It could be his imagination, but Harry thinks he sees pity in Louis’s eyes; it’d sour his mood, but he feels pretty pitiful, so he lets it slide.

“You have anything stronger than beer around here?” he asks, glancing at where Niall is making the rounds and catching up with people, beer already pushed into his hand by someone.

He catches his eye and they share a quick smile, but then he’s paying attention to the girl he was talking to and Harry looks back at Louis.

“Like stronger,” Louis mimes smoking a joint, two fingers pulled close to his lips, “or stronger?” And then he throws his head back like he’s doing a shot, eyebrows raised at Harry all the while.

Harry doesn’t smoke often, but they’ve all – him, Niall, Louis, and even Zayn – shared a bowl on more than one occasion and the thought is appealing. The thought of going back to Niall’s house and Maura smelling pot on him— not so much.

“The second one.”

And just like that, Louis’s steering him toward the coolers where all the beer is, including the six-packs he and Niall brought, and reaching behind the largest one to pull out a glass bottle with cloudy amber liquid in it.

“I brought hot apple pie.”

“Gimme.” Harry is off his game, uneasy, stripped of his context like this, and he thinks alcohol just might be the answer to that.

So he takes a swig right out of the bottle and has to wipe his mouth when he chokes a little, but when Louis’s finished taking a long drink of his own and offers it back to Harry, he goes right back for more until he can feel the warmth of it all the way down his throat and into his belly, until the cinnamon is stinging at his lips. It’s cold away from the fire, late fall in the air, but Harry doesn’t want to go back to the crowd just yet.

“Niall told me he couldn’t tell his mom and dad,” Louis says softly after a minute, watching Harry’s face for a reaction.

Harry raises the bottle to take another drink, doesn’t speak. He can’t think about it too much or it makes him want to grab Niall by the shoulders and scream.

“He was planning to, you know. He wouldn’t have brought you if he wasn’t.”

“Lou, thanks, but I don’t really want to talk about my relationship right now.”

Louis looks hurt, but it only lasts for a second and then he’s just shrugging.

“Your call, man.”

It’s just quiet then, both of them drinking from the bottle Louis brought, using the occasional swig of beer to slow down their progress through it.

Louis’s looking in Niall’s direction and Harry feels bad about shutting him down; he knows Niall is important to Louis. He just…isn’t ready to talk about it. Isn’t ready to hear Louis make excuses for Niall.

“I fuckin’ hate this town,” Louis says after a few minutes of silent drinking. “He’s the best person I’ve ever met and he’s worried about letting people here down. It’s bullshit.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that and he knows he’s being shitty company, so he at least has the decency to go and get the two of them fresh beers. When he comes back, Louis grins and clicks the necks of the bottles together in a cheers.

“I wrote a song about it when I was in high school, you know.”

Now that gets a reaction from Harry.

“About how great my boyfriend is? Do I need to be worried?” His eyebrows are arched in question, but Louis just laughs at him.

“No, about how much I hate this town. I thought I was going to be the singer of a famous punk band. I made Niall play guitar for me, our friend Jesy played drums. We’d play shitty house parties, things like that.”

Harry grins at the thought; he can picture Louis as the front-man of a little pop-punk outfit perfectly (hell, he basically looks like that still) and imagines Niall looking uncomfortable and insisting on wearing his normal ratty t-shirts, but supporting Louis in it anyway.

“Don’t punk bands always sing about hating their hometowns? I expected something less clichéd from you,” Harry teases, laughing outright when Louis shoves his shoulder and calls him a string of unflattering names before trying to get him in a headlock.

They struggle for a minute, both of them laughing, but Harry finally manages to remove Louis’s grip on him and realizes he’s been manhandled closer to the group.

“Listen, Harold. That idiot loves you, right? He just… is still figuring things out. Go easy on him.”

Then Louis’s directing Harry to a group of friendly enough looking people and Harry’s just drunk enough to let him. Niall wanted him to be nice, so he will.

It’s easy to slip into it, shaking hands and smiling and listening to their stories from school or from work. He likes people and, now that the alcohol has centered him, it feels good to talk to these people who knew Niall long before he came along. Especially with Louis in the group— he feels like a tether to life in Madison; a witness who can reassure him that it isn’t all in his head, that he and Niall really are the disgustingly cute, touchy-feely couple that Harry remembers being.

 **************

 

 _Everyone loves Harry,_ Niall thinks as he watches him from the other side of the fire.

There’s a whole group of people crowded around him, laughing in all the right places, as Harry tells some story Niall can’t really catch the plot of, but he’s gesturing wildly and using voices and always smiling, always with the dimples, so Niall understands why they’re all captivated.

When it is like this, it is easy for Niall to forget that he ruined their whole trip, that he might have ruined something even further-reaching than that. The air is cool on his skin but the fire is warm in front of him, there are fireflies in the field beyond them, he has cold beer in his hands and warming his stomach, and Harry is close enough that he can hear him but doing his own thing while Niall catches up with the people who’ve known him since kindergarten. It’s easy to imagine this being a regular part of his life and, while he doesn’t want to leave Madison, this is the first time he’s understood how the people who escape this town could ever want to come back and settle down. With Harry there to make it easier, Niall could see himself making an effort to come home more.

He’s so distracted that he doesn’t even notice that Harry breaks away from his devoted groupies until he is tucking himself against Niall’s back.

“Let’s dance,” he whispers, sending shivers racing down Niall’s spine with how close he is, so close that his lips bump Niall’s ear lobe.

“This music is shit for dancing, Haz.”

“We can make it work, dance with me.”

Harry just really, really needs Niall to dance with him. And maybe it’s a little because he has drunk more than he planned to and maybe it’s what Louis said about Niall loving him, but dancing with Niall right now feels like the most important idea he’s ever had.

Niall feels the burn of a few pairs of eyes on him and then remembers that not everyone here knows about him. There are more friendly faces here than anywhere else they’ve been, but not everyone knows not to mention this to his family. He turns around and there’s Harry, just kind of bouncing from side to side, hips rotating, curls falling into his face.

Niall can’t dance with him, but he also can’t just ignore him because it is like he can feel Harry slipping through his fingers and that is unacceptable.

“Come here.”

**************

 

Harry feels the press of Niall’s hand at the small of his back, guiding him to the side of the house and into where the shadows are there to protect them, to _hide_ them. His other hand tucks Harry’s head against his shoulder before running along the full length of Harry’s arm to clasp his hand and then, before he knows it, Niall is leading them in a slow waltz far beyond the reach of strangers’ eyes, too far to really hear the music – not that it’s slow dancing music in the first place.

“I miss home,” Harry whispers, sniffling and pressing his face closer into Niall’s neck.

This isn’t what Harry needed. He didn’t need to be spirited away from the party, tucked into the dark before Niall felt comfortable touching him. For a moment, the desire to hurt the people that made Niall feel like this was something that needed to be hidden is so strong that Harry wants to punch something, some _one_ , but the urge is gone fast and all that’s left in its wake is exhaustion.

“Remember when Lou came home and you were painting the kitchen?” Niall doesn’t stop leading them through the steps, just speaks low into Harry’s ear. “He was so mad. ‘It isn’t even your apartment!’ Remember?”

The only response is a sniffle and a jerky nod against his shoulder.

“You told him the color was bringing negative energy into the house, that it was bringing us all down. God, you told him it was why the last three girls he’d brought home had faked their orgasms.”

That gets a broken laugh, which makes love flare bright and warm in Niall’s chest until he feels like he’s going to pass out from the sheer force of it.

“I love you so much, Haz.”

He says it without thinking, doesn’t even consider that he’s never actually said it to Harry until they’ve suddenly stopped moving and those big green eyes are looking up at him. Harry’s eyelashes are clumped and spiky with tears and he looks so fucking hopeful that it breaks his heart, because did he really not know? Had Niall really not made it clear enough?

“I don’t miss home because you’re it for me.”

Niall knows it is a borderline shitty, romantic comedy line, but the way Harry’s face goes all soft and tilts up toward him is worth it because, when their lips finally touch, it feels good and safe and, for the first time since he introduced Harry as his friend, Niall feels like he can breathe.

“I love you too, Ni.”

* * *

It’s the sunlight streaming in through the window and the damn broken rooster that thinks noon is sunrise that wakes Niall the next morning. He’s got a morning stiffie and it makes him miss his apartment, miss his bed and Harry in it; miss being able to roll over and start his day surrounded by Harry. Although he can feel the throb of too many beers at the back of his skull, it’s the best sleep he’s gotten since they got here; the secret little smile Harry’d given him before bed eased weight from his shoulders so he could finally get some sleep. He stretches his arms above his head and then palms at his boxers, idly considering pulling one off before he gets out of bed. Blue skies, sunlight warming his skin, morning wank. Unless…unless he can find a way to get Harry somewhere away from everyone else at some point today.

New goal in mind, he’s whistling as he makes his way to the door of Harry’s room and finds it open. Figures that Harry would be up before him. And then he remembers… Bobby told him to be up at five on Saturday for fishing or he’d take Harry and go without him. The thought of Bobby and Harry bonding on the pond he learned to swim in as a kid makes him smile, but then he remembers how chatty Harry gets when he can’t move and how stern his dad would get about silence in the boat.

 _Oh god,_ he thinks idly, _he_ _’_ _ll have throttled Harry before they make it back here. And what if Harry says_ _…_ _something._

Just the possibility feels like being doused in cold water.

“Stop it, Niall. It’ll be fine. He’s not stupid,” he mumbles under his breath as he walks slowly into the kitchen.

He puts on a pot of coffee on autopilot before he remembers his plan from earlier. With it being half past noon, they ought to be back soon. Maybe Niall can still salvage his good mood from earlier.

By the time Harry comes walking in, Bobby trailing him, Niall’s practically vibrating out of his skin from nerves and missing Harry.

“Bitin’ today?” he asks casually, eyes following Harry as he walks to the sink and washes his hands, watches the easy way he moves to the side to share the sink with Niall’s dad.

He doesn’t want Harry to know how uneasy he was, knows it would hurt him to know Niall doubted him.

“Not really. Good time, though. That pond is beautiful at sunrise. And your dad makes a mean thermos of coffee.”

Bobby chuckles and Niall feels the flush crawling up his neck. Harry could charm anyone and they seem on friendly enough terms. Niall was so stupid to doubt him. Harry turns around at the sink and props his hip against the counter as he towels off his hands, mouth quirked in a grin.

“How was your morning?”

It feels so domestic then: Harry standing in his kitchen, washing his hands, asking him about his morning. He looks so goddamn beautiful and really happy for the first time in days that Niall is stunned momentarily by how lucky he is. Harry’s grin gets a little wider and his eyebrows arch up in question, but Niall just opens his mouth silently.

“Well, Niall, answer him. Did ya get anything done this morning or did you just sleep away the best part of the day?”

Bobby’s voice is teasing but still startles Niall into action. He stands up and crosses over to the sink and dumps his coffee out, eyes not leaving Harry’s face.

“I was gettin’ some much deserved beauty sleep, thank you. Thought I might take old Haz here for a picnic later, take the truck and patch some of that fencing around the rear corn field while I’m at it.”

He smiles at Harry slowly, a smile just for him, a smile that he hopes conveys promises of time for just the two of them and maybe (hopefully) blowjobs.

Green eyes flit to look at his lips and Niall takes the opportunity to wet them quickly, getting rewarded with a little huff of breath. Harry practically runs out of the kitchen, but not before Niall sees the half-hard swell in his pants.

“Changing!” he calls over his shoulder as he takes the steps two at a time, leaving Niall standing next to his dad in the kitchen.

“I like that boy. Good kid,” Bobby says, glancing at Niall.

He feels like he’s missing part of the conversation, wonders why “good kid” sounds almost like a threat, but blushes with pride anyway, nodding a couple times.

“He is. Best friend a guy could ask for.”

“Hmm,” is all the response he gets.

Niall feels his palms starting to sweat and feels the pride turn to something stickier and darker in his throat, something hard to breath around. Then there’s a big hand clapping him on the shoulder.

“Better not let Louis hear you say that, he never did like to share. Now, about that fence.”

 ************** 

Their lunch picnic is looking a lot more like dinner by the time Niall finishes getting the old, Ford truck loaded up. Right after he heaves the tailgate up with a loud slam two hands cover his eyes, a body presses close against Niall’s back, close enough he can feel the heat from what’s left of Harry’s sunburn, close enough he can smell his shampoo.

“Guess who!” Harry’s deep, singsonging voice asks.

“I don’t know, let me think about that—“

“It’s your _best friend_ Harold!”

Niall flinches at “friend”: he doesn’t like hearing it come out of Harry’s mouth and wonders if that is how it feels every time Harry hears him say it. He turns around carefully, inspecting Harry’s face for a reason to be concerned. He doesn’t like feeling on edge with him.

“I’m ready for my picnic, Nialler. I’m starving!”

It’s false, too cheery, and makes Niall frown, but the look in his eyes is usual horny Harry so maybe he’s reading the whole situation wrong. That thought doesn’t make him feel much better. Not really, not when he’s never struggled to read Harry before, but it’s preferable to the alternative so he takes it.

“Your chariot awaits,” he says as he backs away.

He opens the heavy door of the truck and bows, gesturing inside. Harry practically leaps past him into the cab, rubbing a hand along the door and mumbling something that sounds like terms of endearment to the car. Instead of his eyes rolling, a fond little smile passes over Niall’s face.

“Watch your fingers and toes, sir,” he instructs – chuckling as Harry’s posture straightens and his hands rest delicately in his lap – before he shoves the door closed with a loud _thud._

When they start to drive, the silence is suffocating and Niall’s just about to turn the radio on when Harry clears his throat next to him.

“So when do we get far enough away from the house that I get to touch you?”

The pure _want_ is back so fast that Niall has to struggle not to drive into a ditch; so fast that he completely misses the dark in Harry’s voice. He takes the question as a confirmation of his assessment earlier and wonders why he was so thrown off. He chalks it up to being out of his element here with Harry. Niall reaches over and laces their fingers, squeezing once and trying not to think anything of it when Harry pulls his hand away to tuck it into his lap.

“Soon, babe, I promise.”

He glances over to see a nod and feels tense in the quiet in a way he isn’t sure how to process.

A minute passes before Harry speaks again, voice low.

“Looking forward to seeing you all spread out on a checker-print picnic blanket next to a corn field though. All blond hair and blue eyes, like some poster boy for Gay America.”

The force of that image is like a vice grip around his lungs and Niall chokes on his breath. He punches the gas until dust flies up around the tires and the corner field they’re heading for is fucking finally visible in the window. In fact, he barely parks the truck before Harry’s pulling at the button fly on Niall’s jeans, his other fingers curling around him and just squeezing gently through the denim. Niall’s caught so off-guard that he slams his head back against the headrest, eyes closed in an attempt to help his resolve, because he knows if he looks at Harry bent into his lap, in the process of freeing his dick, he won’t be able to try to stop it.

“Jesus, Haz! Let’s get out, we’ll have more room.”

“Here, in the truck.”

All Harry can think about is getting his mouth on Niall’s cock; on sucking him off here in this brilliant, old truck; on imprinting this on Niall’s memory until he can’t ever sit in this truck again without thinking about Harry. He feels a little crazed, if he’s being perfectly honest, but that tight ball of nerves in his chest has been coiling tighter and tighter every time Niall introduces him as his friend and now he wants to show him just how _friendly_ he can be.

So maybe he goes a little faster than usual, maybe he gags a little when he struggles to bring his lips to where his fingers are on the first try, maybe there are tears (from the gagging, he tells himself) matting his lashes together, but Niall’s groaning with one hand shoved into the curls at the back of Harry’s head and it feels worth it. Feels almost, if he ignores the stifling heat of the truck cab, like they’re back home, where they hold hands on their way to the park; where Harry reads with his head in Niall’s lap; where they are not just friends but they’re also boyfriends and everyone knows it.

In the process of trying to shift his weight, Harry hits his elbow on the steering wheel and more tears spring to his eyes. They’re not home. They’re in a stiflingly hot truck at Niall’s house and Harry has spent four days being introduced to all of the most important people in Niall’s life as his friend. Nothing feels sure anymore and it isn’t fair because Harry is used to sure things.

“Haz, Hazza, babe— easy,” Niall chides.

He brushes Harry’s tears with his thumb, eyes bright with affection, and Harry wishes this were enough. He hates that he’s even thinking it might not be, feels guilty about it. Selfish. But he keeps hearing Niall saying he’s his “best friend” to Bobby and it feels like it’s blotting out every time he said “I love you” and it isn’t fair, but it’s true because, if Niall only loves him when they are hiding, then it can’t be love.

Harry eases up like Niall asked and hollows his cheeks around the head of his dick, then pulls off with a slick sound.

“Tell me, before.”

If Niall thinks it is weird that Harry wouldn’t swallow or that he’d need the warning, he doesn’t say anything and just nods once, and then bites back a moan when Harry sinks back over him. The burn of his stretched lips is familiar in a comforting way so Harry is strangely disappointed when he feels the telltale twitching of Niall’s thigh beneath his hand and confirmed a second later by a brokenly gasped “close” from above his head. Harry pulls off completely and replaces his mouth with his hand and, when Niall groans Harry’s name a few seconds later, he feels a little more grounded than he was before, looking at the come on the truck and across his knuckles.

Niall coming on the steering wheel is even better than Harry had hoped for, trailing a finger through the wet smear and filling in the Ford logo, smiling even when Niall uses a rag to wipe it away.

“Out of the truck and then I’ll get you off.”

But that isn’t what this was all about so Harry just shakes his head, sending curls flying with the force of it as he opens the door with one hand.

“I’m hungry, let’s eat,” he says as he climbs out.

That does surprise Niall because he’s never known Harry to be able to wait to come, but he follows Harry out of the truck and prepares their picnic anyway. He feels the blush in his cheeks from Harry’s obvious pleasure in the quaint little set-up: their neatly-crafted sandwiches and fresh fruit, the twin pieces of the cake Maura had made the night before, the frosted root beer bottles, the red and white checked blanket, the basket…all of it perfectly arranged.

It isn’t until after they’ve polished off all the food and Harry lays down on the blanket that Niall remembers his peace offering.

“Your turn.”

Niall’s on him then, palming him through his jeans, and Harry wonders why that sends a thrill shooting up his spine. He wonders why he’s even letting Niall touch him when this anger has been growing and curling in the pit of his stomach ever since they got here, turning into something else altogether.

“Want to touch you. Been too long.”

Niall’s kissing the words into his skin as he strips Harry down until the only thing shielding him from the sun is Niall, until he’s the one spread out on that damn picnic blanket in a cornfield like they drove right into a porno. Niall has one of those ridiculously small packets of lube in his hand, the ones that Harry made fun of him for even buying, and it isn’t until that moment that Harry realizes Niall is going to fuck him in broad daylight within a few minutes drive of his parents.

“You’re crazy,” he says, fingers tangling in Niall’s hair when Niall’s mouth closes over one flat oval of a nipple.

“Can’t help it.”

The first slow rub of Niall’s slicked up fingertip against him makes him arch off of the blanket and curse low in his throat because his body is too tense for this right now: he hasn’t relaxed since they left Madison. But Niall’s kissing his shoulder and whispering all these sweet things and, because he’s too far gone to resist him, it’s only a matter of minutes before he’s soft and pliable beneath Niall’s still-clothed body, rocking his hips against the two fingers Niall’s fucking him with now. When his fingers curl up to the spot he knows makes Harry’s world spin, Harry makes a sound like all the air is being punched out of him and Niall is hard again; he can feel himself throbbing against the fly of his jeans.

“This okay?”

Harry can only nod fervently and spread his legs wider to make room for Niall’s shoulders as he scoots down Harry’s body. His cock is pink and wet at the tip already and he might be mad, but clearly not all of him cares.

No matter how angry he is he still fucking loves Niall and he wants to be touched.

So when Niall’s tongue touches the sensitive skin stretched around his fingers, Harry’s surprised shout doubly startling in the relative silence of the field. They’ve never done this, although they’ve talked about it, and it feels filthy; feels even filthier to be doing it outside with Harry’s pale skin exposed to the sun, one leg thrown over Niall’s shoulder, and hands fisting in the picnic blanket.

“Ni, babe, fuck— you don’t have to—“

He can’t keep track of his thoughts and feels everything spiraling out of his grasp, particularly when Niall completely removes both fingers and uses his hands to grasp Harry’s ass, his tongue continuing to do whatever the fuck it is doing, Harry doesn’t even have the brain power to process it at this point, just feels wet and hot and soft. He’s biting the meat of his own palm to keep from absolutely wailing when Niall’s hand wraps around his dick and starts to pull him off fast and messy.

“Close, close, please,” Harry babbles, clenching his thigh over Niall’s back and trying to push back against his face because bliss is right beyond his fingertips. He needs just a little more.

Niall knows, though. Niall always knows and always takes care of him, so his fingers replace his tongue and scissor wide right as his mouth closes over the head of his dick. It’s like the world shatters into a million pieces and he can’t be mad anymore because he isn’t anything other than the feel of Niall’s tongue against his slit gathering up the last bead of come.

“I’ll be right back.”

Niall hops up and walks over to the truck, leaving him naked and sprawled with absolutely nothing covering him. He can barely think to breathe, though, let alone feel self-conscious about being so bare. Niall’s over there for what feels like forever, but Harry looks over just in time to see him toss a toothbrush into the driver’s seat.

“You fucking planned that?” He hopes his voice sounds as incredulous as he feels.

Niall just shrugs, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his ratty old Eagles shirt, and then grins down at Harry.

“Maybe not planned, but boy scout habits die hard. Gotta be prepared.”

Harry groans and throws his shirt at Niall’s face, his legs still too much like jelly to stand up. He should probably at least cover up, though it’d be interesting watching Niall squirm while he explained to Maura and Bobby how he ended up with sunburn on his ass while they were picnicking.

It feels like just a few minutes of quiet, but when Niall nudges his foot against Harry’s leg, it wakes him from a doze.

“Up, lazy bones. I need your help with the fence.”

An hour or so passes of Niall repairing the fence and Harry trying to help, but mostly just getting irritated. When the sun has started to dip below the horizon and the sky is lit in shades of violet and fuchsia, Harry walks over the bed of the truck and lays down, legs dangling over the edge, exhausted.

“You okay over there Haz?”

And, well, he’s not okay. He’s not okay and it’s all too much and then he’s crying, which is embarrassing. Niall starts to rush over to him, arms outstretched, but Harry doesn’t want him any closer and he needs space so he can think; he shouts “stop!” a little louder than he means to, looks up over his chest, and almost pukes at the look that crosses Niall’s face when he freezes several feet away, his hand still reaching out like it can fix whatever is happening.

“I heard you call me your ‘best friend’ to your dad again when I went upstairs.”

It’s not an explanation, but it is all he has.

Niall sinks to his butt in the grass, folds his legs beneath him, and fights the urge to move closer to Harry.

“I thought we already talked about that…”

He’s having trouble keeping up because he’s been calling Harry his friend for days and it seemed like they’d gotten past that for the most part, but it’s clear looking at Harry laying there, arm over his eyes so Niall can’t see him cry, that they couldn’t be further from past it.

“You can’t just spring that on me, Niall. You should’ve warned me that was what I was walking into.”

Niall rakes his hands through his hair, all nervous, helpless energy and confusion.

“I apologized for that already, Haz.”

“Just because you say sorry doesn’t mean it stops hurting.”

“I know, but I’m trying! I thought we were okay after last night.”

There’s a frustrated groan from Harry’s direction, but Niall doesn’t see him; he has his face in his hands because he is trying to get it and trying to keep up and he just fucking can’t.

“I did too, but I just don’t understand, I can’t, how you could be okay hiding and telling me you love me and then calling me your friend to your dad.”

“You are my friend!”

“Don’t try to argue semantics, goddamnit.”

That shuts Niall up because it really was a dick move, but he feels like he’s fighting a battle that keeps changing before he can figure out what he’s even defending himself against.

“I’m not hiding. I love you so fucking much, Haz.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say because Harry is laughing _and_ crying now and his face is red and snotty. He looks like a mess and Niall is just watching helplessly from what feels like miles away.

“Baby,” Niall says – no, he _whines_ – and there’s a new round of sniffling.

When Harry’s hand gently pats the truck bed an arm’s length away, Niall practically runs to lay down there. The only point of contact between them is the spot where their hands are braced against the sun-warmed liner, pinkies hooked together.

“I love you.”

It’s a whisper, but Harry’s eyes flutter shut so Niall says it again and again and again, just a constant litany of devotion and love that he hopes can erase every time he said “friend” from Harry’s mind. He doesn’t stop until the tears have stopped and Harry’s breathing has evened out. But as soon as he stops, Harry fills the silence and Niall wishes he’d just kept saying “I love you” until the whole town faded into the horizon behind them.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to bring me here. Not until you were ready.”

Niall wants to say a million things; wants to tell Harry that this isn’t his fault; wants to apologize, but when he opens his mouth no words come out.

“It was easier when we were in Madison and we could just pretend like everyone knew. We didn’t have to hide anything.” His voice just keeps getting smaller, hoarse already from the crying. “I don’t like hiding.”

“I’m sorry,” Niall says, cringing because he knows how inadequate it is, “Fuck, Haz. I’m so sorry.”

He can’t look at Harry – he doesn’t want to see disappointment in his eyes – so he just reaches for him and pulls him close, arranging him so that they’re almost spooning and presses his face against the soft cotton of his t-shirt where he can inhale the smells of sweet grass and sweat and Harry.

“I didn’t want them to say anything that would hurt you.”

“But you hurt me. Fuck, Ni, when you introduced me as your friend, here I am, thinking I’m meeting the family as your boyfriend, thinking this is some big step for us, and you can’t even tell them we’re together? Do you know what that felt like?”

The anger in his voice is pure and vicious and startling. It strips away all the softness that Niall loves about Harry and leaves behind steel. Niall tightens his arms around Harry’s waist with the sudden fear that if he lets go, if he lets Harry move away from him right now, he’ll never get him back.

“I’m—“

“If you say sorry to me one more time I’m walking back to the house and packing my bags.”

Niall shuts his mouth so hard his teeth jar against one another and send pain radiating through his jaw.

“I’m not telling you to tell them before you’re ready, Niall. But you can’t expect me to go back into the closet. My mom’s known since I was 14.”

“Are you— do you want to— are we breaking up?”

Niall can feel Harry’s chest expand to its fullest capacity and hears the exhale hiss out between his lips. Dread is a cold, clammy feeling crawling up his spine and he realizes he’s holding his breath.

“I don’t know what I want,” Harry whispers.

Niall can barely focus on the words coming out of his mouth over the sound of his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Harry adds, struggling to roll over in Niall’s iron grip, and he doesn’t have to say the “but” for Niall to hear it.

He’s looking down at Niall, but it’s too dark to read any emotion in his face. Niall couldn’t be more surprised when Harry leans in to brush his lips against Niall’s. It’s just a soft brush back and forth, barely even a kiss, but Niall flat out whimpers in a mix of relief and confusion.

When Harry properly seals their mouths together, it feels like sinking. Niall wants to cry: he can’t keep his eyes open and he just keeps praying that this isn’t a goodbye kiss. He doesn’t realize that he is, in all actuality, crying until he feels the hot brush of Harry’s fingers against his face. He pours every ounce of regret and apology that he has into the press of his lips to Harry’s.

“Let’s talk about this when we go home,” Harry says, pressing one last kiss into the corner of Niall’s mouth.

Niall can only nod because he’d agree to anything Harry said right now. Harry nods back at him and then rolls back over; Niall wants to drop to his knees and thank God when Harry doesn’t try to put more distance between them - he just matches his legs to the curve of Niall’s and tucks his hands under his cheek.

Niall reaches for the blanket behind them: a fuzzy Packers blanket that’s been in the family for years. It is just small enough that he has to bend his knees to keep his feet from poking out of the bottom, but it feels like comfort and like everything might be okay.

Of course Harry falls asleep like a light switch has been flipped; a gift that Niall envies as he breathes in the smell of Harry and dreads the conversation they’re going to have when they get back to Madison. He can’t lose Harry, it isn’t even an option: the thought of Harry loving someone else makes him want to scream or cry or punch something. He also isn’t sure how to tell his family, but he doesn’t think Harry was giving him an ultimatum. He could have and he didn’t, and Niall’s so appreciative of him in that moment that he almost reaches over to kiss him.

Maybe with Harry he could tell his parents. Show them how good and happy he and Harry are. Maybe they’d be more okay seeing the kind of boy Niall liked, knowing he was taken care of. He’d like to be able to tell them. He can’t just keep these two parts of himself separate for forever. There’s a soft snore next to him and he props himself up on an elbow, drinking in the sight of that chiseled face relaxed in sleep, lax and vulnerable. He has the sudden, irrational thought that he’d destroy anything that tried to so much as harm a hair on Harry’s head. Then he remembers the flash of hurt he’d seen in his eyes as he introduced him as his “friend,” the wry twist of his mouth as he dropped his bag on the floor of the guest bedroom. The fight earlier. Harry keeps forgiving him.

Niall’d like to need less forgiving.

* * *

“I don’t think I’m as nice to Harry I should be.”

It’s the first thing Niall says to his mom when he gets back, when she finds him sitting on the front porch by himself and brings him a mug of hot chocolate, when she sits down and just leans her head on his shoulder like she knows he needs the comfort. He feels wired too tight, like the slightest provocation could snap him in half. He has ever since he gave Harry a peck on the lips and then watched him drive away from Niall’s house, saying just that he was going to Louis’s and he’d be back later. But having his mom there helps. A mother always knows, she’d say.

“You’re always nice, unless someone’s asking you to share your food.”

“Not always. I haven’t been very nice to Harry all week, actually.” She hums back at him but doesn’t say anything, letting the silence stretch for a moment before Niall continues, “He deserves someone better.”

Niall doesn’t know why he says it, he knows what it sounds like (knows that it sounds like exactly what it is), and can’t bring himself to care. He needs his mom right now more than he needs to keep this from her.

“From what I can tell, Harry does deserve someone very special. But I’d like to think I raised a very special boy.”

It’s cheesy and ridiculous but it makes him laugh anyway because of course his mom would say that.

“I don’t think I’ve been acting in a way you’d be very proud of.”

“I’m always proud of you, Niall James Horan. Do you want to deserve Harry?” Niall nods and knows she can feel the motion by the way she squeezes his hand and pats his leg with her other hand. “You’ll figure it out. You’re a good man.”

There are tears in Niall’s eyes and he doesn’t know when they got there, but it just feels so good to sit there and talk more openly about it than Niall ever would’ve imagined being able to do. He almost throws his arms around her legs like he’s a toddler again when Maura stands to go back inside, but instead he lets her tousle his hair and then start toward the hallway. She hesitates in the door, her back to Niall, and her voice is quiet in a way that means Niall has to actually strain to hear her.

“I hope you’ll tell your dad and bring your boyfriend back for Christmas. I’d like to get to see how happy he makes you.”

Niall puts his head down on his crossed arms in front of him and all he can do is cry.

* * *

Harry likes the feeling of his lungs straining against the smoke curling inside of him and pictures it pushing against the walls of his ribcage. He breathes out and visualizes the sweet smoke as this thing that has built up between him and Niall, whatever it is, and watches that drift away. Wills it to stay gone forever.

“I always feel like a kid when I come back here,” Louis says, his eyes focused on the blue sky stretching out above them, “Like here we are hiding behind a garage because I don’t want my mom to find out I smoke. She told me to text her if I was going to be out past midnight tonight.”

The laugh that follows is more like a bark than anything, but then he’s taking another hit and just quietly watching the clouds.

“What was it like growing up here?” Harry doesn’t even realize he was wondering until the question leaves his mouth.

“For me or for Niall?”

He can feel Louis’s eyes on the skin of his face and resolutely avoids eye contact when he takes the joint back for another hit.

“Both, I guess.”

“Boring, mostly. Everyone knows your business, nothing is ever just yours here. My mom caught me with my hand up a girl’s shirt once and at work that night, one of the old women that goes to Niall’s church was telling me she’d pray for me as I carried her groceries to her car.”

The thought makes Harry smile. His neighborhood had nosy neighbors and word got around, but, for the most part, Madison was composed of smaller circles of people that knew one another’s business. Strangers weren’t praying for him after his mom caught him jerking Nick Grimshaw, who was a few months away from graduating, off in the 10th grade.

“Why did you come here without Niall?”

When he’d texted Louis earlier that morning, he didn’t know what to say so he just asked if he could come over and, within minutes, Louis had responded with a “of course , curly . u ok ??” that made Harry smile and feel thankful that Niall’d grown up with Louis there for him. He may be a dick, but he’s also one of the best people Harry has ever met. And Louis hadn’t pressed him when he showed up without Niall; hadn’t asked again if everything was okay. He just led him into the kitchen, made him a bowl of cereal and let him use what was apparently one of Louis’s little sisters’ favorite bowl, and told him stories about all of the ridiculous things people had said to him since he got back in town. Until now.

“I needed a little space from him.”

It’s all Harry has by way of explanation. It isn’t like he and Louis are best friends, but he’s the only friend Harry has here other than Niall.

“Now I know there’s a first time for everything; you guys have barely been apart since you met.”

“It’s harder to be together here.”

“Do you want to not be together?”

“No, no. God no.” Harry doesn’t know much right now, but he knows that with a startling degree of certainty. “I just, fuck. It hurts, still, and I keep trying to talk it out with him but I don’t want to pressure him because that isn’t fair. I don’t know what to do with that.”

He doesn’t know how to explain it without making Louis roll his eyes.

“Ever since I saw him at that party, we’ve been a sure thing for me. I guess this is what doubt feels like? I don’t doubt a lot of things, just like, in general. I don’t like the way this feels.”

“You’re a sure thing for him too, surer than his family. He knows, or thought he knew, that you wouldn’t turn his back no matter what.” Harry opens his mouth to respond but Louis just keeps talking, “Which isn’t fair, to expect you to just deal with whatever because he loves you, and I told him as much.”

“I just don’t know where to go from here, Lou. If he tells them, I’m going to feel like I made him. If he doesn’t, I’m going to be cut out of a huge part of his life.”

“I’m shit at relationships, so I don’t feel like I have a lot of advice for you here. But I know that the way he looks at you when you aren’t paying attention is so sweet it makes me want to puke half the time and the other half of the time it makes me want to build statues honoring how happy you make him.”

Harry laughs and reaches out to shove Louis’s shoulder.

“You big sap, I had no idea you actually had feelings.”

“I contain multitudes, friend. Now let’s go watch some cartoons, I’m too stoned for this shit.”

 _I love you_ , he texts Niall before standing to follow Louis.

The response comes fast and makes Harry giggle under his breath. _don_ _’_ _t leave me for louis , he has stinky feet and bad morning breath xx_

 _I_ _’_ _ll be back later. Love you._

* * *

He does go back a few hours later. Niall greets him with a kiss before he’s even all the way out of the car and he lets him because Harry is tired of this weirdness between them and then Niall bundles him into the house to make at least one introduction the way he should’ve the first time.

“Mom, this is my boyfriend, Harry.”

Maura has tears in her eyes when Niall says it and she ignores Harry’s offered hand in favor of wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug.

“A mother always knows,” she whispers to Harry, quiet enough that Niall won’t hear her, “I’m glad to really meet you.”

Harry feels himself getting choked up and he sees Niall try to furtively rub his hand across his eyes and then he’s actually crying for what feels like the millionth time in a week.

“Can our next vacation have fewer tears?”

Harry asks brokenly after a few seconds of sniffling and then the three of them all laugh, which feels good and right and Harry thinks he might love Maura already.

When they get home to Madison, Niall writes a letter to his dad. Harry keeps telling him it is okay, that he doesn’t have to tell him, but Niall insists that he wants to. It’s a short letter, a note really, and Harry rubs his back the entire time he writes. Niall knows he shouldn’t do this through mail, but it’s the only way he knows how to get it all out there without Bobby stopping him. That night, Niall gets to be the little spoon and Harry doesn’t say anything when the tears start, just hums scales into Niall’s ear and plays with his hair until he calms down.

Louis gets a key to the apartment printed for Harry and presents it to him one night when they’re all out on the balcony drinking.

“Here you go, Curly. You two might as well make it official.” Niall thinks he is the luckiest person in the world to have Harry and Louis at his side. “You’ve got to start paying rent though.”

Harry moves in and he does pay a third of the rent and things start to feel like a newer, better version of normal. A normal where Niall gets to come home to Harry every night and they go to dinner at Harry’s mom’s house almost once a week, where Louis and Harry gang up on Niall to tease him; where Niall finds himself learning Zayn’s favorite bands; where Harry keeps inviting Liam and Zayn over for “dinner parties” that are little more than thinly veiled attempts at matchmaking. The only blight on it all is that Niall still hasn’t heard from his dad, though he talks to his mom fairly regularly and she tells him not to worry, to give him time.

Then, one day, Niall’s phone lights up when he’s home alone, books spread out around him on the kitchen table and studying frantically for a final.

“Hi Dad,” he says automatically, before he’s even processed who is calling or that he’s going to answer the phone.

“Niall.”

“What’s up?”

 _Pretend it is normal, pretend it is fine._ Pretend it hasn’t been more than a month since he sent that letter.

“Your mom and I are planning for Christmas dinner and I was just calling to see if you’d be bringing Harry?”

“Yeah. I mean…is that okay?”

Niall can’t believe they aren’t going to talk more about this, but then again, maybe he doesn’t have anything else to say about it. Should he have to have more to say?

“I told you, he’s a good kid. We’d be happy to have him here with us.” There’s a pause. “Make him bring a suit for midnight mass.”

“Yeah, okay. I will. We’ll be there.”

“Alright, I’ll tell your mother. She’ll be thrilled, she’s already planning your wedding.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Love you.”

“Love you too, kid.”

He hangs up abruptly, which doesn’t surprise Niall because his dad is great, but words aren’t always the easiest thing for him. It isn’t like Niall can judge: he came out to him in a fucking letter.

When Harry gets home that night from his evening class, he brings a cold rush of air into the apartment with him, but he looks like warmth and coziness and home, dressed in a big navy sweater layered over one of Niall’s flannels, over probably three other shirts if anything like usual. He comes over to kiss Niall hello and, instead of a quick peck, Niall’s hand finds the chilled skin at the back of his neck and curls there, holding him in place for a slow kiss that feels like love and thick, syrupy desire all at once.

“Differential equations getting you all worked up?” Harry mumbles against his mouth, a low chuckle vibrating his chest beneath Niall’s other hand.

“What do you say to being one of those boring old couples that has to split Christmas between the in-laws?”

That makes Harry pull away, dimples out in full force until it looks like his smile is going to split his face clean in half.

“Really?”

“My _dad_ called today. Can I have a redo of the last time I took you home?”

There is a loud bark of laughter from Harry and then the world goes topsy turvy and Niall really needs to start doing yoga with Harry because he slings Niall over his shoulder like it is nothing.

“The only thing you’ll be redoing that you did on that trip is what you did to me in that field.” Niall feels his face burn hot at the memory of his mouth on Harry, tongue touching skin already stretched around his fingers, “The rest of it better be completely different.”

He bounces when Harry flips him onto their bed, but he’s too busy watching Harry strip out of some of his top layers to feel indignant. Harry is crawling up his body and kissing him until he’s out of breath, and then it’s all bare skin and sweat and heat and when Harry comes on his tongue he says “I love you” and Niall knows he has everything he could ever need in Harry; knows he’ll never get him out of his system and tells him as much when Harry pulls him off slow and sweet and hushed.

He should’ve known better, but he’s glad he didn’t.

 


End file.
